‘THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED COTTAGE’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

The Troubleseekers with the Tenth Doctor and Martha

The tenth story of the ‘Doctor Who’ Puffin e-shorts series is ‘The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage’ by Derek Landy. Here’s a YouTube interview with Derek Landy.

Derek Landy is well-known for writing the ‘Skulduggery Pleasant’ book series. I’ve not come across Derek Landy as a writer before, but I enjoyed his take on the Tenth Doctor and Martha in ‘The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage’. Derek’s short story does have an Enid Blyton/‘Famous Five’ vibe to it. 🙂

Like I said, ‘The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage’ features the Tenth Doctor and Martha. The story is divided into six chapters. As well as a ‘Famous Five’ vibe to it, the story also has ‘The Mind Robber’ vibe to it since it’s all about fiction. The audiobook version of this short story is read by Ian Hanmore.

Ian Hanmore is well-known for playing Father Angelo in the TV episode called ‘Tooth and Claw’. To be fair, Ian does well reading this story and does decent voices for the Tenth Doctor and Martha, but I would’ve preferred it if Freema Aygeman read the story. She did read ‘The Last Dodo’ audiobook. 🙂

In the story, the TARDIS arrives on an unknown planet. The Doctor and Martha step out and they find themselves in the children’s story of ‘The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage’ from ‘The Troubleseekers’ series. ‘The Troubleseekers’ series is a clearly a cheap rip-off of ‘The Famous Five’. 🙂

I found the story being full of the adventurous feel of the Tenth Doctor era throughout it. I liked how the story revealed Martha’s childhood memories of reading books like ‘The Troubleseekers’. The fictional world that she and the Doctor are in turns the stories that she’s read into reality. Intriguing!

‘The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage’ rating – 7/10