Brian Slough on the haunting magic of the Wyvern Quartet. In Wyvern Fall, Nicky Thorpe, an aspiring reporter, arrives in the ancient village of Herpeten to pursue the kind of idiosyncratic news item that sustains local television. The vicar has decided to scrap the Harvest Thanksgiving in favour of celebrating Saint Romanus’s Day. Hardly, it seems, a Newsnight exclusive, yet Nicky realises “there’s something very creepy going on”, associated with this dragon-slaying saint.

Readers of earlier stories in the Wyvern quartet will have been captivated already by that “creepy something”, a supernatural fantasy which includes journeys from Herpeton to another world, by characters embroiled in their past. Above all, there is the inescapable mystery of the wyverns and young Thomas Ketch’s awareness of his special connection with these mythical beasts as the potential “Dragon Master”.

Thomas, the quartet’s central protagonist, will exert a strong appeal to youngsters; they will share his anxieties, not least at his mother’s hospitalisation and his embarrassment at displays of affection. Throughout, he is self-sufficient, heroic, and acknowledges his own strange destiny. His formidable adversary, the sadistic Parcel, snarling “more like a beast than a dog”, also influences the action in the shape of his “stones” (echoes of a sinister Stonehenge).

Another intriguing duo are the Rev Clovis Weever and Miss Felicity Aylmer. Weever stalks the village on huge feet, with flowing black hair and cassock, a beard and fierce eyes - “his was not the sort of face that could beam”. He delights in sarcastic confrontation, exploitation, and searches for flying wyverns, not God. The American Miss Aylmer has “sharp eyes in a keen face” and keeps a cobra (Shakti) in Viviper Cottage, not to mention an ever-ready glass of whisky for Clovis. Their enigmatic relationship has a delicious fascination behind its perfect mask of innocence.

No moral ambiguity surrounds the functionally mischievous Towser, the pet dragon dog. Likewise others, such as Tom’s father, tolerant and kind but “never too good with words”, unlike his creator. Toby Forward’s ear for dialogue, paramount in delineating the likes of Weever, individualises even minor characters.

The distinctive quality of the writing also creates tension from conceivably tired situations. Children dangerously alone in a church or deserted manor; explorations in tunnels; threats of entrapment, vertigo: each is captured with a startling vividness that tugs at our fears.

That same talent is apparent in the pointedly observed seasons, integral to the storyline and its atmosphere. Towser loses himself in the “joy of winter’s single cold” or the “lying, deceitful days of spring”. In summer he innocently encounters the drought-destroyed pond, whose mud “cracked and crazed like an old plate”, hides grotesque dangers. In the chill autumn “steam rises from Towser’s mouth”, poor Tom’s a-cold, and we shiver at the looming denouement.

Each book can be enjoyed separately, but the pleasures deepen if the four are read in sequence, not just for reasons of plot. The interlocking narratives contain numerous recurring motifs bringing an added dimension, from characters aching for absent mothers to the many faces of laughter. Most significant is the ingenious omnipresence of wyverns - on stones, steeple, doorknocker, in similes etc - stunningly to erupt in the flesh, with their fierce gold eyes and hot breath, smelling of perfume.

“There’s a big story here”, says Nicky, and she might have added, superbly crafted by a gifted novelist. The haunting magic of each book will enchant a surprisingly wide audience.