Midnight hour for Walliams with his best chart week ever

David Walliams has put the brakes on The Girl on the Train’s 12-week run at the top of the chart, with The Midnight Gang (HarperCollins Children's) striking the Official UK Top 50 number one spot with a resounding chime, according to Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. Walliams’ newest children’s title sold 70,058 copies for £393,642, beating long-time kids' fiction rival Jeff Kinney into second place, and shunting Hawkins’ psychological thriller into fourth.

Walliams v Hawkins round two—after short story collection The World’s Worst Children (HarperCollins Children's) came off worse upon its debut against The Girl on the Train (Black Swan) in their original May bout by a scant 2,000 copies—was carried decisively by the comedian this time around. The Midnight Gang’s first week out of the blocks was Walliams’ best single week of sales ever, and 18% up on the first week volume of The World’s Worst Children—36% up on last year’s autumn smash hit Grandpa’s Great Escape. And it only came out on Thursday (3rd November).

Though Kinney’s 11th Wimpy Kid title Double Down (Puffin) is his first title in five years not to rocket straight into the top spot, it was actually his fastest-selling title since 2013’s Hard Luck, shifting 63,192 copies.

Jeffrey Archer’s This was a Man (Pan) swiped third place and the Original Fiction number one, selling 20,927 copies, the highest number one of 2016 so far.  This pushed The Girl on the Train and its film tie-in all the way down to fourth and fifth place, respectively, and the paperback sold fewer than 20,000 copies (18,305) for the first time, after nearly seven months on bookshop shelves. However, it did clinch a 24th week as Mass Market Fiction number one.

Quercus’ answer to the Ladybird Books for Grown-Ups series, the spoof Famous Five books by Bruno Vincent, may have upset the Christmas apple cart by actually charting higher than the latest Ladybird tranche. The new Ladybirds that flocked into the chart from Super Thursday onwards have so far hit a high of 13th, with How it Works: The Grandparent the frontrunner, closely stalked by How it Works: The Cat.

But Five on Brexit Island (Quercus) has gone in the exact opposite direction to pound sterling and soared into the top 10, shifting a robust 15,398 copies (not quite 17.4 million, but there you go). Five on a Strategy Away Day and Five Go Gluten Free also set up camp in the Top 50. The four-book series sold a combined 35,229 copies in total.

 Susie Steiner’s Missing, Presumed (The Borough Press) surpassed 100,000 copies sold for a 10th consecutive week in the Top 50. The crime novel has been the stand-out in a rather lacklustre Richard & Judy Book Club season (in sales terms)—especially compared to the summer tranche, which included The Girl on the Train, John Grisham’s Rogue Lawyer (Hodder) and Dawn French’s According to Yes (Penguin). All three titles sold well in excess of 150,000 copies. Of the autumn picks, only Missing, Presumed has hit six figures.

Bonfire Night is over, the Oxford Street lights are on, the Christmas sandwiches are in Pret—and the market joined in the festive cheer last week by jumping 4% week on week to £33.1m. This was a lavish 7.3% up on the same week in 2015.