A review by jickyjacks
Archer's Goon by Diana Wynne Jones

4.0

This was the first Diana Wynne Jones' book I had read many years ago. It caused me to devour most of her other work and I'm happy to report my boys loved it too. It may not be her best book, but has some of her best characters in my mind. And it's characters that Jones excels at. She creates such lively, humorous characters, sets them up in a minor mystery with a whimsical setting, and what follows is usually quite entertaining. In this case a 13 year old boy, Howard, with his short tempered, aptly named little sister, Awful, must figure out why 7 "wizard" siblings, who control/govern their town, are obsessed with their father's writings. The writings seem to be keeping the siblings from leaving the town. While suspecting each other of being behind it, the siblings make Howard's and his family's life miserable in attempts to gain more information from them. Unfortunately, no one seems to know the answers. It's a setup for funny character interaction and turns out to be a pretty good mystery and reveal at the end. Only knock I have is that it's not a easy book to read aloud. Found myself getting tongue-tied and confused often by how some sentences were worded.