Short description
This is a Gothic novel in the tradition of the highly successful Harry Potter series, but with distinctly South African features and set in a mysterious boarding school somewhere on the South African platteland.
Long description
is a Gothic novel in the tradition of the highly successful Harry Potter series, but with distinctly South African features and set in a mysterious boarding school somewhere on the South African platteland. When Mark is sent to St Matthew's College for Boys, it is one more punishment for years of bad behaviour. The school has a reputation for knocking boys like him into shape, run with an iron fist by the sinister headmaster, Mr Crabtree. As soon as he arrives, Mark enters a sinister world of questions: what is Mr Crabtree's secret, and why does he have a miserable sixteen-year-old secretary? Are his new friends who they say are? Mark sets out to find answers, with his friends, Trent, Vlad and Francis. Together, they are the Goblet Club, dedicated to the study of poisons. They begin to use their potions to rid the school of a plague of rats, but as Mark is drawn deeper in, their thoughts turn to murder…