Arthur Slade (Can)

Is quickly establishing a reputation as one of Canada's best writers of children's literature. Draugr, an instalment in his Northern Frights series, was nominated for both a Saskatchewan Book Award and a Small Press Book Award in the US. He garnered the 2001 Governor General's Award for Children's Literature for Dust, which was praised as "tough, compassionate, clear-sighted and daring" by the award journey and as "riveting" by fellow luminary Kenneth Oppel. Arthur also writes the hilarious "Great Scott" comic strip, and his series Hallowed Knight has earned glowing reviews and worldwide popularity. His studies the strange and wondrous Tribes of high-school in his new book of the same name.

Arthur Slade's newest title combines his comic genius and his ability to make your heart freeze with terror. Walter Biggar Bronson (a.k.a. Wart), and his friend Cindy meet a ghost one night after school. The small, mournful boy leads them across the Broadway Bridge to the gracious Bessborough Hotel. After a strange incident in the elevator, they find themselves still in the hotel - but back in 1936.Some spooky things are going on. The room numbers are all mixed up. The library on the mezzanine is filled with hundreds of copies of the same book. And out on the street, the cars are all the same - vintage Studebakers.Back in the present, Wart and Cindy follow their motto - "Gather, Identify, Solve" - until they crack the case, with help from Wart's distinctively odd parents, and the loan of his mother's time-travel-proof cellphone.For all the humour in Slade's gentle spoof of the detective genre ("A good detictive always knows what time it is"), there is a serious ghost story here. Young Archie Tortle, drowned along with his parents in 1936, has not been able to accept his death. He has created his own world in the hotel, where everything serves his needs. Only Wart and Cindy can help him come to terms with his loss and stop him haunting the hotel.