The Darziods' Stone by author Richard Smith When the school summer trip to Blackpool gets cancelled, Harry's parents offer to include Harry's friends in their trip to Tredock Cove in Cornwall. Amelia, Mitch and Asad are grateful - Cornwall will be great and, even if it isn't as great as Blackpool, anything is better than being stuck at home, right? Ryan is less convinced. He's not the most open-minded of boys and he sincerely believes that Cornwall is full of carrot-crunchers. But he goes along anyway, even if it is reluctantly. Even Ryan doesn't want to be left at home by himself. And it doesn't take long for the quiet break in Cornwall to turn into something much more exciting - and frightening. The kids find a secret code and become convinced that cracking it will lead them to hidden treasure. And it might well do, but the code will also lead them to something much more dangerous... ... because as readers of The Darziods' Stone will already know, thanks to a prologue dating back to 1798, Tredock Cove was once the scene of something very sinister indeed. A ship returning from the Napoleonic wars once stopped off there. Its captain and boatswain were murdered and the rest of the crew disappeared, never to be found. The world never knew this but an experiment conducted by a band of prisoner alchemists, led by the evil de Richlieu, was to blame. As our heroes search for treasure, they find themselves pitted against these ancient forces. And they will need some extraterrestrial help if they ever hope to defeat them.