Dakota wanted to run but she couldn't move. The monster crawled closer. It's going to kill me, she thought. Then a hand landed on Dakota's shoulder. 'Got you, darling,' hissed Medusa.

Dakota Pink is afraid of nothing - until the day she decides to find out the truth about Medusa's baby monster.

But that is only the beginning of a quest that will lead Dakota and her best friend Treacle away from the White Flats, over the river with its mutant killer eels, to Dog Island and the Fortress.

The Fortress is built of barbed wire and broken glass. with a notice on the door which says 'KEEP OUT ALL CHILDREN AND SIMILAR GERMS'. In this forbidding building lives Lassitter Peach, best-selling author of romantic novels, and total recluse: he never goes out of the Fortress and no one ever goes in. Until Dakota and Treacle come in search of the diamond-studded turtle and find much, much more than they could ever have dreamt of.

Award-winning author Philip Ridley sends his readers on a wild and thrilling voyage of discovery with his fearless heroine, a voyage in which anything can happen...

Reviewer: megan