Monstrous devices

When twelve-year-old Alex receives an old tin robot in the post, the note from his grandfather simply reads: 'This one is special'. But as strange events start occurring around him, it doesn't take Alex long to suspect that the small toy is more than special - it might also be deadly. Just as things are getting out of hand, Alex's grandfather arrives, whisking him away from his otherwise humdrum life and into a world of strange, macabre magic. From Paris to Prague, they flee across snowy Europe in a quest to unravel the riddle of the little robot, and outwit relentless assassins of the human and mechanical kind.