Kidnap at Denton Farm
Robert Swindells, Illustrated by Carolyn Dinan
Published by Hippo
0-590-55798-X, £2.50 pbk
The third book about The Outfit: 'four kids and a dog on the lookout for adventure' starts with a heated local dispute about the aesthetic and ecological merits of a new wind turbine on a farm owned by the parents of two of the children. Things turn very ugly indeed when a child is kidnapped by somebody who believes the device conceals a ray gun which has been messing up the inside of his head. Many of the ingredients for this story are taken off the shelf used by innumerable children's adventure writers, but Robert Swindells handles them with an individualistic feel for menace and an ear for contemporary voices. The result is a book which combines the familiarity of serial-writing and the excitement of a genuine cliff-hanger.
Reviewed in BfK No. 93 (July 1995) by George Hunt (GH)
BUY THIS BOOK »( keywords: 8-10 Junior/Middle | BOOK )