Books by Robert Westall

In 'Adolf', a young boy becomes convinced his elderly neighbour is actually Adolf Hitler in hiding. The British soldiers in 'The German Ghost' have an otherworldly encounter with a mysterious and sinister figure in black. 'East Doddingham Dinah' is a stray cat who takes up residence on an RAF base and seems to possess the unsettling ability to know which planes will be shot down. A late-night aerial mission at 24,000 feet becomes a terrifying supernatural experience for the crew in 'After the Funeral'. Master storyteller Robert Westall (1929-1993) loved writing about three subjects above all: World War II, cats, and ghosts, and all three of these interests are on display in this collection featuring eleven of Westall's finest wartime stories, several of them supernatural. Originally published between 1982 and 1997, these stories are gathered together here for the first time and will delight readers of all ages.Praise for Robert Westall'Fiendishly clever, spine-tingling short fiction' - Publishers Weekly (on Antique Dust)'Marvelous M. R. Jamesian-style ghost stories' - Michael Dirda, Washington Post on (Antique Dust)'So vivid and deft that it had me sweating with vertigo as well as superstitious terror' - Daily Telegraph (on The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral)

There were three people, standing in the darkest place, watching him. Simon is outraged that his Mum plans to remarry. He can't bear her new fianc or the way his mother and sister seem to have forgotten his late father. Overwhelmed by hatred and anger he seeks solace in a nearby abandoned water mill. But another, powerful hatred lingers within its walls. And it is about to be unleashed... Westall's immense talent is evident from the opening line - Simon's anger and unhappiness are tangible, and the Scarecrows' ill-intentions terrifying.

She made her way down the cliff, and on to the beach. At the edge of the waves, she stopped, shaking her wet paws. She knew that somewhere ahead was her person, but far, far away. She miaowed plaintively; stood staring at the moving blur of uncrossable sea. She led the way to safety, out of the blazing hell of blitzed Coventry. People touched her for luck; feared her as an omen of disaster. Wherever she went, she changed lives . . . From her beginning to her end she never wavered. She was the Blitzcat. Blitzcat by Robert Westall is the Smarties Prize-winning book about one brave cat's experiences during World War Two. Now with a brilliant new cover look and including an extended author biography.

'Some bright kid's got a gun and 2000 rounds of live ammo. And that gun's no pea-shooter. It'll go through a brick wall at a quarter of a mile.' Chas McGill has the second-best collection of war souvenirs in Garmouth, and he desperately wants it to be the best. When he stumbles across the remains of a German bomber crashed in the woods - its shiny, black machine-gun still intact - he grabs his chance. Soon he's masterminding his own war effort with dangerous and unexpected results . . . The Machine Gunners is Robert Westall's gripping first novel for children set during World War Two and winner of the Carnegie Medal. Now with a brilliant cover look celebrating its fortieth anniversary. Includes a bonus short story - 'The Haunting of Chas McGill' - and an extended biography of the author.

'Ninety-eight keys, none of them labelled. Ninety-eight keys, and they say there are ninety-nine rooms . . . What will you find in the ninety-ninth room, I wonder?'Maggi is delighted when her father takes a new job, renovating a crumbling stately home in Cheshire. It's a chance to escape from the North-East, from the predatory Doris Streeton, and perhaps from the grief at the heart of Maggi's family. But Maggi gradually comes to realize that their new home holds secrets far more sinister than anything they have left behind . . .

An adaptation of the Carnegie Medal-winning children's novel.

Is there a barrier that divides the dark unknown from the everyday world around us? If so, is it broken sometimes by the dead returning, by the undead, or by alien creatures? What else could account for the chance meeting (or was it?) between a young student and hitch-hiker who turns out to be so much stranger than she seems? Why else should three successive crews flying a Second World War bomber - Blackham's Wimpey - be driven to madness, despair, even to death, though the plane returns from each mission without a scratch? Who are Fred, Alice and Aunty Lou; the figments of Peter's imagination that become a real life nightmare for Roger and Biddy? There is St Austin Friars, too: a church without a congregation - until a burial service, oddly arranged a month ahead, is attended by a sinister assortment of the living and the dead. And Sergeant Nice, an ordinary policeman in an ordinary seaside town faced with a series of quite extraordinary thefts; the work surely, of no human hand. Chilling, but often humorous as well, these stories creep up on you and take you by surprise.

Set on Tyneside in World War II, this is one of a series offering classic and contemporary fiction for schools to suit a range of ages and tastes. A German Heinkel bomber has been shot down, and someone has managed to get away with a machine gun and all its ammunition from the crashed plane.