Tuft and Max are both looking for things in the forest. Tuft is a fox-like, squirrelly Finder, part of a whole civilisation of Finders, who keep whatever human discards they come across, while Max is a child tasked with trying to rediscover a time capsule his gran buried. There's a deadline on that, too, as the developers are moving in (as the map tells us way before the text actually does). Mind, Tuft's lot thinks there is a deadline, too, as they have word of Doomsday – the nature of which we can guess at here. But with everything about to change, will either of them succeed – and how can the two species, normally kept firmly apart, get along together?

What this all boils down to is a saga that is really quite guessable – and yet is written with such pace and pleasure that all that is too familiar and too obvious is easily forgiven. I at least could tell what this was, and what the case was with that, and I am sure the smarter child would too – but it still instils warmth, not the coldness such a blatant non-twist normally delivers. Heck, even the fact this has a subtitle and therefore starts a series is evidence of a happy ending that runs counter to much of the plot.

Said plot is taut and gripping, mind, with nothing like a dull moment. I see the audio version is only three hours long – although I'd not recommend that, as the artwork here is top notch too. You'd just have to double-dip and experience both. What there is here is an instant immediacy to things, and no lumpen world-building – this has come fully fleshed out, and you're instantly with Max on his mission, as unusual as it at first sounds. Tuft, too, is a fine character – the Finders close to a lot we've already read of yet distinctive enough – and more books with them together can only be something to really look forward to. Four and a half stars, I'd say.