Scholastic Press
ISBN: 978-0545208628
Published March 1, 2011
Hardcover, 288 pages
I used to love reading mysteries when I was a kid and reading The Midnight Tunnel brought back memories of reading Nancy Drew. My daughter and I both enjoyed this first book in the new Suzanna Snow Mystery series.
It’s the summer of 1905 in the sleepy coastal town of Loch Harbor, New Brunswick where Suzanna is helping her parents manage the exclusive Rosemount Hotel. Suzanna is bored with learning to be a proper lady and serving tea to the guests. She prefers observing the ins and outs of people’s behaviour and putting to use her investigative skills. She wants to be a detective one day just like her hero, Uncle Bruce, who lives in Boston.
Suzanna carries a notebook and takes note of anything she thinks may be a clue to something. Things liven up when a little girl, Maddie, goes missing from the hotel one stormy night when the electricity goes out. Uncle Bruce is called in. Suzanna actually witnessed something in the servant’s tunnel that might lead the authorities to finding Maddie and solving the mystery of why no ransom was requested and how the girl went missing, but no one takes Suzanna’s sleuthing seriously.
The book has a slow start and about midway when Uncle Bruce and his young nephew Will shows up, the action picks up and moves more quickly. The author has a beautiful way of describing scenery and actions, bringing them to life but sometimes this slowed down the pace of the book. There were a lot of new words for my daughter to learn in this novel, as the vocabulary is more for the older middle-grader than the younger. My daughter was eager to discover who took Maddie and why. She found the story exciting as the mystery began unravelling. I loved the time period and how the author incorporates this with the setting of a coastal town in the mystery.
I think tweens who love to read mysteries and historical fiction will enjoy this new Suzanna Snow Mystery series.
Disclosure: Thanks to Nikole Kritikos from Scholastic Canada for sending me this book for review. I was not compensated in any other way, nor told how to rate or review this product.
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I loved mysteries as a kid, too, but never read a Nancy Drew, if you can believe that! The Midnight Tunnel sounds like a good one and I love the cover!
ReplyDeleteIt's good to hear that there are good descriptions. Most books sadly lack those these days and editors discourage it.
ReplyDeleteAnn
As a huge Nancy Drew fan, I'm going to have to check these out!
ReplyDeleteI loved Nancy Drew! This sounds like one my daughter and I would enjoy reading together.
ReplyDelete