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The Museum’s Secret (The Remarkable Adventures of Tom Scatterhorn, book 1) by Henry Chancellor.
Published by Oxford University Press, 2008.

Tom Scatterhorn goes to stay in an old dingy museum owned by distant relatives while his mother goes to look for his father who is on the quest of rare beatles in Mongolia and has gone missing.

When Tom reaches the Museum he finds it is full of taxidermy animals aged over 100 years. Despite their age the animals seem very alive and believe it or not, are alive. They are alive because of their creation by an evil taxidermist who will stop at nothing on a very particular mission to find a magic potion which can triumph over death and is housed in the museum.

Tom finds himself caught up in a terrifying journey which takes him from an ice fair in an Edwardian town, to India on a tiger hunt and right back into the future!

The juxtaposition of time is an appealing feature of the story which alternates between 100 years ago and the present day. The book contains some memorable characters and enough gruesome details to hook readers aged 9 or 10 and over and will leave them impatient to read the next instalment.