Blood Hound by Tanya Landman

hand and he screamed. Frazier – not wanting to miss out on doing what he’d been trained for – sprang at him. Graham and I were knocked aside. Dermot’s shriek of alarm was cut short. And suddenly there was an awful lot of blood.
    Grant turned and ran. Big mistake. The mastiffs threw back their heads and bayed, then gave chase. Tongues lolling out, the dogs bounded past us. Grant was brought down before he’d even reached the street.
    Right in front of our eyes, both men had their throats torn out like ancient Aztec warriors.
    There’s not much to add, really. Dermot and Grant died of their injuries and sadly the mastiffs had to be put down: the RSPCA said that once they had developed a taste for blood, they couldn’t be trusted not to attack again.
    Mumsiewumsie recovered from her accident and was soon back walking Malcolm and Stanley twice a day in the park. Jessie was rehomed and ended up living with the Ball Obsessed Collie. Kathryn Hughes was released without charge.
    No one ever did get prosecuted for sending out the poo packages. I was pretty sure Horrible Hoodie had done it, but I wasn’t going to say anything. You see, Graham and I became quite friendly with Kyle Jacobs in the end. He still looked scary – and so did his dog – but we discovered that they really were both as soft as butter underneath. And Kyle had been telling the truth about Tyson’s ear – it had been ripped in a fight, but there was nothing illegal about it. Gertrude the dachshund had bitten him and Tyson hadn’t even retaliated. As for Kyle’s criminal record and the theft he’d been tagged for, it turned out that he’d nicked some doggy treats from the local pet shop. Not entirely honest, maybe, but not exactly a Major Crime, either.
    Graham and I carried on walking Bertie until Mrs Biggs’s leg healed, which wasn’t until a few weeks into the new school year. By then, I’d become quite attached to him. Well, you can’t help liking an animal that’s saved your life, can you? Even if it does look like a hairy maggot.

1
Has the past come
back to haunt them?
    My name is Poppy Fields. I never
believed in ghosts – until I stayed on
a remote Scottish island, and people
started dropping dead all over the
place. Was a spirit taking revenge?
When Graham and I investigated, we
began to see right through it…

2
That’s the way
to do it!
    My name is Poppy Fields. I was deady
excited about my first trip to America.
But then people started getting
themselves killed in really weird
ways. Nothing made sense until
Graham and I investigated, then the
murders seemed to tie together as neatly
as a string of sausages. A little too neatly…

3
Stage fright!
    My name is Poppy Fields. When
Graham and I landed parts in a
musical, we didn’t expect real
drama. But then the star got a
death threat and the bodies
started stacking up. Before we
knew it, we were at the top of
the murderer’s list…

4
On the trail
of a murderer!
    My name is Poppy Fields.
When we designed a murder
mystery trail for the school
fayre, it was supposed to be
a bit of fun. But before long
the head was dead and
Graham and I were hunting
down a real life killer.

5
Murder is a
beastly business!
    My name is Poppy Fields. Graham and I
were first on the scene at a series of
murders at the zoo, but who was
behind them? We had to prowl around
a bit to investigate – and what we saw
was not pretty. How would we escape
before we, too, became dead meat?

6
Roll up, roll up!
    My name is Poppy Fields. When the
circus came to town, the posters
promised certain death. This made
Graham and me suspicious, and we
were proved right when someone was
killed in the ring. With the circus
performers still in grave danger,
we had to work fast to discover who
was firing the shots…

7
Words can be dangerous.
    My name is Poppy Fields. When we
offered to help out at our local
literary festival, Graham and I had
no idea just how murky the
world of children’s books really
was. Before