'When a mouse is born, he has to fight to survive. There are many enemies...''

In the sewers of Deptford there lurks a dark presence which fills the tunnels with fear: The rats worship it in the blackness and name it Jupiter, Lord of All.

Into this twilight realm wanders a small and frightened mouse. Far from family and friends he perishes, and in so doing is the unwitting trigger of a chain of events which hurl the Deptford Mice into a doom-laden world of terror and sorcery.

Can the mice survive against such evil?

Or have they lost the comfortable world they once knew for ever...?

'The Dark Portal was my very first book. It began as one tiny drawing of an albino runt who became Oswald Chitter. My desire was to make his world as convincing and frightening as possible. I wanted the reader to believe in these characters and fear for them.

Before I even began writing the first chapter, however, I worked out the storylines for all three books. This meant that I knew precisely who was going to to survive and who was not! It also enabled me to put in hints of what could happen later.

Many of the characters (including the rats) were based on friends of mine!

The Characters

The Mice

Albert Brown
Loving father and devoted husband. Albert is a commonsensical mouse, not usually given to rash actions.

Arthur Brown
Fat and jolly, Arthur likes a scrap, but always comes off worse.

Audrey Brown
Tends to dream. She likes to look her best and wears lace and ribbons. Audrey cannot hold her tongue in an argument, and often says more than she should.

Gwen Brown
Gentle wife of Albert and caring mother of Arthur and Audrey. Her love for her family binds it together and keeps it strong.

Arabel Chitter
Silly old gossip who gets on the nerves of everyone in the skirtings.

Oswald Chitter
Arabel's son is an albino runt. Oswald is very weak and is not allowed to join in some of the rougher games.

Piccadilly
A cheeky young mouse from the city, Piccadilly has no parents and is very independent.

Thomas Triton
A retired shipmouse. Thomas is a heroic old salt - he does not suffer fools gladly.

William Scuttle or "Twit"
Twit is a fieldmouse visiting his mother's sister Arabel Chitter. Twit is an "innocent", and does not have a bad word to say about anyone.

Eldritch and Orfeo
Are brothers, and as bats see far into the future. Bat advice is a very dangerous thing to seek, for they tell you only fragments of what they know.

The Green Mouse
A mysterious figure in mouse mythology. He is the spirit of Spring, and of new life.

The Rats

Madame Akkikuyu
A black rat from Morocco. She is a fortune-teller who wanders around selling potions and charms to gullible customers.

Finn
A sly old worker - one of his ears is missing, but he doesn't miss much.

Fletch
A dirty old rat with bad breath and spots on his nose.

One-eyed Jake
A popular rat who is threatening to oust Morgan from office.

Jupiter
The great dark god of the sewers. He lives in the dark portal and possesses awesome powers. All fear him.

Leering Macky
A rat with a terrible squint. He and Vinegar Pete are old cronies.

Morgan
The Cornish piebald rat who is Jupiter's lieutenant. Morgan trusts no-one, and does all Jupiter's dirty work.

Skinner
A rat with a mousepeeler strapped onto his stump of an arm.

Smiler
A strong giant of a rat who works in the mine.

Vinegar Pete
This rat never smiles. His face is always sullen and he and Leering Macky mutter to themselves.