It is so different from Bartimaeus', so I don't expect it to be so gloomy. It was published in 2001 (before Bartimaeus' trilogy), and I supposed this book was aimed for kids, although I think it's too frightening for them (heck, even I had goosebumps when I read this book at night). It was a very detailed description of a girl (Charlie) who didn't accept the death of her friend (Max) who was drowned in the pond. Or I thought so, at the beginning. She was obsessed with his death, and went everywhere to their old haunts to find him and take him back. She tried so hard and went so far until she penetrated that fine line between this world and the world of after-death. Charlie was supposed to be died also on the day Max died, but she refused the temptation, and apparently, the messengers of death tried so hard to pull her to their world, while Charlie tried as hard to find Max and pull him back to her world. Great story, I can feel her frustation, her fear, her love for Max. But the story is way too long, the feeling Charlie had day by day of the two months when she went everywhere was described in minute details, so I fell asleep a few times before finally I finished this very short book.