A deeply English bit of fantasy that draws as much from The Wind In The Willows as from Gormenghast, with its band of decent sort heroes and the eccentric architecture of its secluded and insular namesake town, not as gothic as the architecture of its plot, which initially stretches back to Elizabethan times, and later proves to have roots in Roman times, and hints at deeper still. Twelve gifted children are born, though how it is they came to be identified as such remains obscure. Have being presuably spawned by God or the Devil, they are sent to a distant valley to be raised and educated, but the worm is already in the apple.

Modern Rotherweird is an independant city-state that supplies the outside world with technologies both delightful and horrifying, while obeying strict laws against any study of history. When the consummately corrupt mayor sells the centuries-deserted manor in the heart fo the town to a wealthy outsider, he isn't quite prepared for what follows, but a disparate group of men and women gradually gather to oppose him. Lots of mysteries and incidents that swing between the tragic and the comic. There's a murder, though every knows whodunnit, and a Narnian otherworld, albeit a Darwinian nightmare. Mad science and magic jostle with boat races and school pageants, and everyone knows the bad guy is really bad when he shuts down the local. A long, enjoyable, rolling read.