Synopsis: In a fractured realm, struggling to maintain an uneasy peace after years of civil war and religious tyranny, a twelve-year-old orphan and her loyal companion, a large and homicidal goose, are about to become the unlikely heroes of a revolution. Mosca Mye has spent her life in a miserable hamlet, where her father was banished for writing inflammatory books about tolerance and freedom. Now he is dead, and Mosca is on the run, in search of a better life. With Eponymous Clent, a smooth-tongued swindler, she heads for the city of Mandelion, living by her wits among highwaymen and smugglers, dangerously insane rulers, secret agents and radical plotters. But the city is in uproar, for someone is once again printing seditious material and no one is quite what they seem. With suspicion and peril at every turn, Mosca uncovers a shocking plot to force a rule of terror on the people of the Realm, and all too soon merry mayhem leads to murder ...

Review: Mosca Mye lives in a post-civil war world where the written word is feared and books are burnt to keep the populace ignorant and in their place by warring factions of monarchists and parliamentarians.

Twelve-year-old Mosca is a rarity in her world because, unusually for a girl of that time, she had been taught to read by her radical father, which made her feared because everyone knows that books are dangerous and the words crawl around in your brain and send you mad!

Starved of affection and books, the orphaned Mosca, is on the run. Teaming up with the silver-tongued swindler, Eponymous Clent, Mosca and her homicidal pet goose find themselves embroiled in plot and counterplot, intrigue, treachery and treason. Circumstance and a series of adventures bring them to an understanding of each other as they uncover a conspiracy that leads to chaos and confusion and the solution of a dastardly crime.

Fly by Night is fantastic, funny and fabulous.

Winner of the Branford Boase 2006

2006-11-30