Birdie and Bowser fans will enjoy the brouhaha in the bayou and hope more mysteries are on the way for their favorite...
Dynamic duo Birdie and Bowser, an 11-year-old sleuth and her fearless canine companion, set out to solve the case closest to Birdie’s heart in this sequel to Woof (2015).
Birdie’s father, Detective Capt. Robert Gaux, was killed while working a case with the New Orleans police department when Birdie was just a baby. When two homes (including Birdie’s) in St. Roch are ransacked, a young woman appears in town with suspicious motives and a familiar name, and a gentleman from New Orleans develops a keen interest in Birdie’s Mama and the Gaux family home, all signs start to point back to the slain detective. Birdie’s been told she thinks a lot like her father, but does she think enough like him to solve his final case and his own murder as well? Birdie won’t stop until she finds out, and readers will be right with her, cheering her on. The suspense builds nicely, and the Louisiana bayou setting and lively cast of characters (mostly white and Cajun) give the story home and heart. As in the first installment, Bowser’s narration is largely playful and funny, but the undercurrent is darker here, as evidenced by Birdie’s discovery of a body in the swamp and Bowser’s rescue of Birdie from a potentially life-threatening attack.
Birdie and Bowser fans will enjoy the brouhaha in the bayou and hope more mysteries are on the way for their favorite sleuths. (Mystery.10-14)Pub Date: April 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-64334-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
A few promising, even brilliant bits are lost in an ill-constructed jumble of warring plotlines and ambiguous agendas.
As fleets of hostile warships gather over a floating city, a young thief finds himself the object of an urgent manhunt.
Readers can be excused for coming away bewildered by Sheehan’s competing storylines, disconnected events, genre-bending revelations, and refusal to fit any of the major players in the all-White–presenting cast consistently into the roles of villain, ally, or even protagonist. Continually shifting through points of view and annoyingly punctuated with an omniscient narrator’s portentous commentary, the tale centers on the exploits of 12-year-old street urchin Milo Quick and his squad of juvenile ragamuffins (seemingly juvenile at any rate; one is eventually revealed to be something else entirely) in an aerial city of Dickensian squalor threatened by a multinational flying armada. Though a lot of people are after Milo, ranging from the swashbuckling crew of a flying privateer hired (ostensibly) to kidnap him and a vengeful punk bent on bloody murder to a sinister truant officer paid lavishly by mysterious parties to watch over him, he ultimately winds up—or so it seems—being no more than a red herring all along. The actual target is revealed piecemeal in conversations and flashbacks before the commencement of a climactic bombardment and an abrupt cutoff in which three side characters, miraculously shrugging off multiple knife and bullet wounds, themselves suddenly take center stage to set up a sequel.
A few promising, even brilliant bits are lost in an ill-constructed jumble of warring plotlines and ambiguous agendas. (Science fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-10951-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
A literal cliffhanger leaves eager readers hanging; next stop: Greece—and Tartarus.
After waging two separate quests (The Lost Hero, 2010; The Son of Neptune, 2011), the Greek and Roman demigods of Riordan’s Heroes of Olympus quintet join forces.
With his now-trademark zero-to-60 acceleration, the author engineers a ghostly possession to set Greeks and Romans at odds and initiates the Prophecy of the Seven, hurtling Annabeth, Percy, Piper, Leo, Hazel, Frank and Jason into a pell-mell flight on the magical trireme Argo II. They seek the titular Mark of Athena, which they hope will provide the key to defeating the vengeful Earth mother, Gaea, or at least some of her giant offspring. As the trireme crosses the country, the pace drags while the demigods sort out relationships and work to figure out both cryptic prophecy and nightmare visions. With sweethearts Annabeth and Percy once again united, much of the tension that powered earlier books is gone. Once the Argo II leaves the United States, though, the pace picks up, and the comically instructive set pieces Riordan’s so good at emerge. A Luddite god rails against what he calls the “b-book,” which displaced the far superior scroll technology; Annabeth gets a crash course in the cult of Mithros far below the streets of Rome. Here, Riordan’s infectious love for his subject matter really comes through, even as he takes some real risks with his characters.
A literal cliffhanger leaves eager readers hanging; next stop: Greece—and Tartarus. (glossary) (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4231-4060-3
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
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