Edwardian teen Lady Violet Winters finds herself, her parents and their American ward, Garth, on a steamship bound to Egypt for Christmas—and adventure. Violet’s governess, Amelie Poisson (whom Violet calls “dear codfish”), and her pet monkey join the entire family as they become involved in tracking down smugglers, tomb raiders and yes, crocodiles. Nicholas Etherington, a young businessman, and Lord Percy, Violet’s father, seem to have mysterious insights into the perilous situations developing on the trip. The teens, parents and Egyptians aid in the pursuit of the evil Count Kapolski, who poses as a big-game hunter but clearly has more sinister aims in mind. Wallace’s descriptions of pyramids, the streets of Cairo, Shepheard’s Hotel and a river trip on the Nile in a dehabiyah put the reader deep into the historical setting. Two other installments of the British import Lady Violet’s Casebook series are also out: The Man with Tiger Eyes (ISBN: 978-1-4169-0099-3) and Diamond Takers (ISBN: 978-1-4169-0100-6). Look out, fans of Indiana Jones and future Elizabeth Peters readers: There’s a croc on the loose—actually, ten of them! (Mystery. 10-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-689-87483-3
Page Count: 202
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
During WWII in the Philippines, American citizens trapped in the war zone were imprisoned for years by the Japanese, events that provide the context for Hertenstein’s first novel, which focuses on one 14-year-old, Louise. Louise’s minister father is captured in Manila, leaving her and her weak-willed mother to face life alone with other Baptist missionaries on an outlying island. The colony escapes into the hills for a time, but is discovered and interned in a concentration camp. Eventually they are moved to Manila, and later to the notorious camp, Los Banos. One of Louise’s friends is discovered with a radio and executed; food is scarce; people are dying. Hertenstein writes with sensitivity, although the story is often disjointed, e.g., the news that the colony has been taken prisoner comes in a letter Louise writes to her sister, instead of through Louise’s natural-sounding first-person narration, which filled the first 60 pages. When the Japanese disappear from the camp, Louise, now almost 18, rejoices that finally there will be “No bowing, no bayonets,” yet bowing and bayonets, major features of Japanese concentration camps, have hardly been mentioned. A first work that is shakily compelling, often uplifting, and certainly promising. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 25, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-16381-5
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
Loosely connected to historical events, this tale of a 17th-century English town that isolated itself to prevent the plague from spreading celebrates selfless courage, but it does so at some distance, and within the confines of a contrived, ordinary story. Daughter of a prosperous, bookish squire, Nell Bullen has enjoyed an idyllic upbringing, and despite confirmed rumors of plague, eagerly accompanies her father to London when he is inducted into the Royal Academy. Guided by the up-and-coming Samuel Pepys, Nell tours the city, avoiding the plague-ridden districts until by mischance she witnesses a horrifying mass burial. Sobered, she returns to Branford, not long before the local tailor takes ill. Viewed largely from the distant safety of the manor house, the townfolks’ principled decision to stay put rather than flee, and their subsequent suffering, will seem a remote catastrophe to readers, and Nell’s stilted narrative style (“Among our visitors from London was a singular young man whom I misjudged completely at the start,”) gives this the artificiality of a formula romance. Though the act from which this story springs merits commemoration, the inner and outer devastation wrought by disease is more vividly captured in Cynthia DeFelice’s Apprenticeship of Lucas Whittaker (1996) and Anna Myers’s Graveyard Girl (1995). (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8037-2393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1999
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