Young Sherlock Holmes thrills Galway pupils

In a forbidding castle perched on the edge of some of Europe's highest sea cliffs, there is a sinister psychic, a dark beast and a servant frightened to death. Call in young Sherlock Holmes, dozens of enthusiastic primary school pupils concurred in Galway city yesterday as they got a taste of the first Irish episode in the teenage detective series.

Author Andrew Lane met pupils from Scoil Iognáid and St Nicholas's primary school in Galway's Dubray Bookshop on Shop Street during his "knife-edge" Young Sherlock Holmes tour – named after the title of his sixth book in the series.

He selected the west of Ireland as his "set" as a tribute to his editor, Polly Nolan, who is from the city, he said, and he "loved the place" on his research visit "I visited the Cliffs of Moher, and of course then I had to include them, so moved them a bit north," he confessed. "But as an author, I am allowed to do that."

Andrew Lane, a journalist and lifelong Sherlock Holmes fan, worked with the estate of the character's creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the series.

He says he bought his first Conan Doyle book, A Study in Scarlet, at the age of nine at a church jumble sale.

Fellow Holmes enthusiast Reese Keniston (13), a pupil at Coláiste na Coiribe in Galway, is a fan of authors such as Derek Landy and Eoin Colfer. However, he said he was very impressed with Lane's research, had devoured all of the Young Sherlock Holmes series, and found this latest plot to be "very layered".

Young Sherlock Holmes: Knife-Edge by Andrew Lane
is published by Macmillan