"Would you enjoy living in a world lit by misty moonlight, a world where plants scream and vines try to grab you?" That's what Anthony Monday, his elderly friend Myra Eells (town librarian), and her brother Emerson discover is in store if the Autarchs—a group of hideously deformed sorcerers—have their nefarious way. It's up to the three intrepid adventurers to locate and destroy the crystal cube that's the source of the Autarchs' evil power. Throwing in plenty of conventional ingredients (ghosts, illusions, cryptic clues, secret passages, magic amulets, a witches' sabbath, cliffhangers, last-instant rescues, etc.), Bellairs dishes up a broth spiced with action, suspense, and his usual heap of lucky coincidences. More digestible than some of the author's recent offerings, with all three main characters taking active roles. (Fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0142402621
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Set in 16th-century feudal Japan, a slow, uninvolving episode in the adventures of two wandering samurai previously met in Namioka's The Coming of the Bear (1992). A mysterious figure in a white fox mask is fomenting rebellion in a misty, newly annexed valley—intending, it turns out, not to throw out the small occupying force, but to steal its payroll and leave the locals to their fate. Enter unemployed ronin (masterless samurai) Zenta and Matsuzo, who discover that they've been cleverly maneuvered only after helping with the heist, but do manage to recover the gold, thus saving the valley's residents from slaughter. The contrast between impulsive Matsuzo and his crafty, saturnine mentor Zenta plays as well as ever, but that's all that works here: The pace never picks up after the hookless, sluggish opening scene; readers expecting suspense, heroics, authentic atmosphere, or at least some action will come away disappointed; and the fleeting appearance of a second, possibly supernatural White Fox is as forced as the attraction that develops between Zenta and Kinu, daughter of a once-noble clan and the valley's secret jujitsu instructor. The criminal mastermind's escape at the end implies his return in future adventures, but the series is plainly running out of steam. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-15-201282-6
Page Count: 213
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
The sadness pervading the first few pages of this decently written first novel is almost overwhelming: Chris and his parents return to the summer home where his toddler sister Molly apparently drowned three months earlier; the family is just beginning to come to grips with their loss. Viewing a videotape made that terrible day, Chris interprets it with poignant optimism—maybe Molly was kidnapped, maybe she's alive, maybe he can find her. With longtime best friend Pat (and without the knowledge of his parents, who are suitably skeptical about the scenario he envisions), Chris travels to Florida and locates the elderly couple who have convinced Molly that she belongs to them. So much of this mild adventure works that it seems almost curmudgeonly to point out its faults: the boyish eighth graders encounter no real difficulties in their journey; the kidnappers' motives, arrest, and punishment are barely hinted at; there's an unsettling shift to Molly's point of view that all but confirms the outcome, diffusing any lingering suspense. But holding everything together are the characters' feelings; their grief and reactions to various dilemmas are so pure and credible that readers will willingly put doubts aside to join in the search. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-8075-7531-3
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1993
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