- Front Cover, The London Eye Mystery - Debra Lill
While their mothers wait in a café, Ted, his older sister Kat, and their cousin Salim, line up for tickets to the London Eye, a popular tourist attraction. When a stranger offers them a free ticket, they decide Salim, who has never been on the Eye, should take it. The ride takes 30 minutes, during which Ted and Kat track Salim's capsule visually, expecting him to walk out when the half-hour is over. But to their horror, no Salim comes out. He has vanished into thin air!
A Mystery for the Whole Family
The following chapters are a commotion of disbelief and panic as Ted and his family try to deal with Salim’s disappearance. Author Siobhan Dowd quickly draws her readers in with authentic, powerful emotions and family relationships in this fast-paced thriller.
The police are called in but find no leads. So Kat and Ted, who has a “funny brain” that allows him to see things that others miss, begin to form theories and follow clues in the hope of finding Salim themselves. Did he run away? Was he kidnapped? Did he enter a time warp (which is one of Ted’s theories)? Among the clues lie secrets to Salim's identity, as a half-Asian, half-Irish teenager who maintained a cool facade at school and nevertheless was a lead in the school play.
Thinking Out of the Box
To find their cousin, Ted and Kat must first get over their huge differences. Brother and sister couldn’t be more different. Kat is a typical fun-loving teenager, while Ted’s “funny brain” (he has Asperger’s Syndrome) “runs on a different operating system.” Dowd takes the reader into Ted’s mind and how it perceives the world (he is, for instance, obsessed with weather forecasting). Through his eyes, the reader sees things others miss and how Ted can help to solve the mystery.
Ted's attention to detail is his strength as a sleuth and a narrator. But Ted isn't always right. He struggles with a very literal view of the world. For him, deciphering everyday expressions (does small talk mean using words with only one syllable?) is often more of a challenge than figuring out the whereabouts of his cousin.
A Brother and Sister Team
Dowd has made Ted and Kat’s prickly relationship almost as fun as the mystery itself. They take turns at taking charge and being vulnerable. The book contains a lot of English slang (lilo, mosher, bog, fag, as in cigarettes), but isn't hard to follow. The London Eye Mystery contains mention in this book of smoking, drinking, kidnapping, sex, and lying. As in all good mysteries, the clues make sense and allow the reader a real shot at solving the mystery, too.
Dowd is an English author whose four books deserve attention. She was posthumously awarded the Carnegie Medal for her third novel, Bog Child. She died at the age of 47 in 2007.
Ages 9-12
Yearling (reprint edition, May 26, 2009)
ISBN: 0385751842
336 pages
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Jacqueline Ching - Growing up in the Philippines, I loved Star Trek and Star Wars. There's only one Captain James T. Kirk.
