Welcome to the official website of Brian Keaney, the UK writer for children and young adults.

The Magical Detectives

Otto Spinoza comes home from school one day to find his mother missing. At first he tries to carry on as usual, hoping she will come back by herself. But too many strange thing are going on. Like the way the air seems to crackle with electricity when he walks through the front door. Or the fact that he could swear he saw his mother in the mirror soundlessly calling for help.

Uncertain who to turn to, Otto comes across an advertisement for a Magical Detective Agency.  The agency is the brainchild of a strange character called Maximillian Hawksmoor, who is convinced that Otto’s mother has been abducted by Elementals – beings who live in a completely different world.

Max is very persuasive and it’s not long before Otto, along with his friend Juliet and her cat Cornelius, join him on a strange and dangerous journey to rescue Otto’s mother – in a world where anything is possible...

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The Magical Detectives and the Forbidden Spell

In a locked museum in the middle of the night a thief appears from nowhere, steals a priceless clay tablet from Ancient Babylon and then disappears.  In the village of Harford a senior British diplomat is found strangled in his bed.  And in the sleepy little town of Bridlington Chawley an internationally-famous hypnotist knocks on the door of Spinoza's Second-Hand Bookshop.

What is the connection between these three events?  That's the mystery that  the Magical Detectives have to solve.

Fresh from their first strange and dangerous adventure, Otto, Juliet, Corny and Max must now embark on a much riskier journey -  one that will take them to the very heart of magic.

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