Maddie has agoraphobia. She is also massively fat and has a 'memory like a steel trap'. Her brother Keith keeps her informed of events in the outside world, and Maddie writes it all in notebooks. Their mum, a mousey, fearful creature, who is terrified of cupboards, is the head of this remarkable and highly bizarre household. There is something that Maddie can't remember, something to do with her grandfather and the Tower Library that rises menacingly over the city of Pridebridge. After 13 years of never going out the door, she finally makes herself do so when she finds Keith in great danger from a bully, and she finds a new bravery in facing up to the so-called librarian at the Tower Library who has been blackmailing the entire town for years. Grandad, who has been a prisoner all this time, is found, and in an exciting denoument which includes tunnels and floods and the baddies getting their just desserts, all is revealed, and we understand why Maddie has been afraid. There is nothing realistic about this story, but Maddie is a wonderful, lovable heroine who gets over her agoraphobia for the best of reasons.