The
Ballad of Bill McKenzie is the haunting and Gothic first volume introducing
us to the universe and characters of the
Magic Mattress series of books. Epic tales of high
fantasy, ghosts, monsters, adventure, mayhem and mystery... all happening in
our familiar world: just out of sight; or there, in the corner of your eye.
Herein
lies a ghostly little tale of top hats and tall booted fantasy, to stir the
unquiet imagination.
There
is a most infamous ghost in Liverpool. A legendary apparition, to inspire dread
and wonder, and his name: Bill McKenzie. He has haunted the city streets
in his top hat and tall leather boots for as long as any can now remember. Yet,
all anyone truly knows about him is wild speculation and rumour. His is a dark
mystery that has remained secreted for a century and more. And there his bones
sit on a chair, in a pyramid shaped tomb, in an abandoned church yard, on
Rodney Street.
Exactly
how did McKenzie – in his life, an
esteemed engineer and upstanding Victorian - become in death, this ghastly
green-eyed spectre that strikes mortal terror into all who should glance upon
him? Why does his restless shade sing among the shadows that dark lament of
restitution, justice and revenge?
This
then, is old Bill’s ghostly tale,
told exactly as it happened: beware, for it is a macabre affair of the
magical and the supernatural. The eternal game of souls: vast fortunes to be
won, and enormous stakes to be lost. McKenzie’s
fate, however, is not the end of the story – no, not by any means. It is merely
the beginning of the undertaking. The opening moves in a far grander
game: a fantastic adventure spanning all of time and creation.
