"This book is about a most private and secret habit my father had, and about the strange adventures it led us both into..." Danny thinks the world of his father, who has looked after him ever since his mother died, when he was just four months old.But as he grows up, Danny discovers that his father's secret spells adventure and trouble for both of them.
Mark never heard the Mauser shot for the bullet came ahead of the sound. There was only the massive shock in the upper part of his body, and then he was hurled backwards with a violence that drove the air from his lungs.The earth opened before him, and as he fell, there was a sensation of being engulfed in a swirling vortex of blackness and he knew for just a fleeting instant of time that he was dead'