Ante’s Inferno begins with Ante, short for Antonia, playing the Last Post on the trumpet as part of a remembrance service for the ex-students of her school who fell during the First World War. Little does Ante know that not long after she will be experiencing first hand exactly what they went through.
But before that Ante first suffers from the bullying of Florence which leads to the Florence chasing her into the closed off organ loft, which is a dangerous place to be given the drop to the floor of the hall down below.
This is where the journey through Hades begins (just like Dante did in Dante's Inferno). Their companion on the journey is Gil, a boy who was murdered when he was pushed off the very same organ loft that the two girls entered the Underworld from. Along the way they encounter Cerberus the 3-headed dog, the boatman of the Styx, the seven deadly sins at the “shopping maul”, harpies, Chiron the centaur, a Minotaur and the devil himself. That is even before Ante is thrown into World War I action.
Ante learns that the reason she, as a mortal, is there is because she has some sort of task to do, although she doesn’t know what, although all gets revealed through the course of the book of course.
Maybe Hades isn’t hellish enough but this is a book for 11-year-olds so that is ok. Also youngsters may not get all the references to Dante’s Inferno, so it is a bonus if they are familiar with that, although it is possible to get by without it. They should enjoy the happy ending (the selected quotes on the back suggest this) and the action along the way though in thie well-told, action-packed tale.
(I got this book through Amazon Vine UK. It is listed HERE.)
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