Published January 2012 Allen & Unwin
From the publisher:
A network of tunnels leading under the park, a secret exit to an abandoned mansion, a hidden box of documents...all very mysterious, but it's just a game, right?
Wrong.
When shadowy figures start watching every move they make, Kitty, David, Andrea and Martin know they've stumbled onto more than a forgotten piece of history. They need to find all the answers fast, before someone beats them to it.
I am not a huge fantasy reader, so for many years I have been hoping that another genre would stand up and take centre stage. It looks like the good old fashioned mystery might just do it. I grew up on Trixie Beldon, Nancy Drew and Enid Blyton, and I turned into a 'reader' so they couldn't have been all bad, so, bring on the mystery I say!
This is an Australian mystery set in Balmain, NSW. It doesn't give away the ages of the characters, but there are 2 boys and 2 girls, probably early high school age. The description of them exploring the tunnels in the first pages was enough to get me hooked, I even started to feel slightly panicked when it looked like they were trapped (unreasonable, as it was only a few pages in, and there was whole novel to get through, of course they got out!). Throw in a spooky old house, a greedy property developer and his goons, an elderly lady who claims there is a buried treasure, submarines in the harbour and you have the makings of an entertaining novel.
Who will like this book: Girls and Boys Age 11+
Read it if you like: Mysteries
I live in Balmain and loved trying to work out where the characters were walking, which park, what house etc.
ReplyDeleteThere really are tunnels underneath the suburb going out into the harbour from the old mines that were here until about 50 years ago!