Next thing he knows, George is running for his life after a carved pterodactyl hops down from the wall and tries to kill him.
One moment of anger and George is now in a very strange London indeed, where statues walk and talk. Some will try and help him, some want to rip him apart and he has precisely 24 hours to make it right before things really get awkward.
I'm going to make a confession. This is a series aimed at 10 year olds. And I thought it was bloody brilliant.
I picked the first one up in a cheapo shop and it wasn't until I got halfway through and happened to look at the back cover that I realised I was not the intended target audience.
The idea that manmade objects have a life of their own is not exactly new but any suggestion that this is some kind of jolly adventure is brutally stamped on inside the first few chapters.
Like an awful lot of kids books these days, Stone Heart and sequels are dark bordering on Nightmare Fuel. Main villain The Walker is a knife-carrying, mass-murdering psychopath and he can command every twisted, grotesque gargoyle and creature in London. Made me look at modern art in a whole new way, I can tell you.
On the heroes side, George starts off as a sulky loser but quickly grows a pair and reluctant ally Edie Laemmel is...let's just say the girl is messed up and as you get more and more of her backstory you can understand why. Then there's The Gunner, The Officer, Boadicea and the other statues. Charlie Fletcher manages to do a great job of humanising them, explaining how stone and bronze set up to honour men and women can take on something of what they represent.
The story is more complex than first appears, with old obligations and curses, history and bad memories woven into the narrative.
So: Interesting premise. Novel characters. Plenty of action. Thoughtful story and an ending that's hard-won but upliftiing.
Well worth reading and while I might have got some funny looks while I was searching Junior Fiction for the sequels, I regret nothing.
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