Description of book
Imagine a million clever rats. Rats that don't run. Rats that fight- Maurice, a scruffy tomcat with an eye for the main chance, has the perfect fiddle going. He has a stupid-looking kid for a piper, and he has his very own plague of rats- rats who are strangely educated, so Maurice can no longer think of them as 'lunch'. And everyone knows the stories about rats and pipers- and is giving him lots of money- Until they try the trick in the far- flung town of Bad Blintz, and the nice little con suddenly goes down the drain. Someone there is playing a different tune. A dark, shadowy tune. Something very, very bad is waiting in the cellars. The rats must learn a new word. Evil. And it's not a game any more...
Reviews
Winner of the 2002 Carnegie Medal
Shortlisted for the 2002 WH Smith Children's Award
Shortlisted for the 2002 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize
"Excruciatingly funny, ferociously intelligent."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred Review)