Dark, Funny Adventure: Read an extract from Embassy of the Dead by Will Mabbitt

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Jake Green is not your ordinary kid. He may appear that way at the start of Embassy of the Dead but when you reach the last page, there’s no denying that unusual things tend to happen when he is around.

For instance, one day he is walking down a lane way and a strange man who just happens to look like an undertaker, hands him a box. When, later that day he opens it, he is faced with a severed finger. Eek!

Confused and not at all sure what to do, Jake hardly has time to contemplate his next move before Stiifkey (the undertaker from the laneway) is back on the scene explaining to him in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t the intended recipient of the finger.

Unfortunately for Jake, opening the box has inadvertently broken one of the Embassy of the Dead’s most serious laws. Not only is he destined for the Eternal Void, he will be collected by Mawkins, one of the Embassy’s twelve reapers who could track you to the end of the earth by following your scent.

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Will Mabbitt has an overactive imagination. It used to get him into trouble, but now it’s his job. His first book, The Unlikely Adventures of Mabel Janes, was shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award. He’s achieved little else of note, preferring to spend his time loitering in graveyards. He can also be found wandering the streets of Brighton in a daze. He is probably having an idea. He lives with his family, in Lewes, on the south coast of England.