This book is the fourth in a series that the British author and illustrator loosely based on his own family when they lived in a lovely old house on the fringes of Farnham, Surrey. In the first three books the heroine was the eldest daughter (named in the books February): FRIDAY'S TUNNEL, FEBRUARY'S ROAD and ISMO. The fifth and last book in the series is SAMSON'S HOARD.
The intrepid young heroine in this book is February's next younger sister, Berry Callendar, fourteen years old. The older siblings Friday and February are still around and still involved in international skullduggery (having experience in the previous books of saving the world and foiling international art thieves and so forth) but Berry was too young to know much about that. The fun begins when she goes up to London to attend the ballet with an eccentric great-aunt and gets mistaken for her older sister by one of the bad guys.
The first hint of the adventure in store is when a 15-year racehorse fed on a diet that includes sunflower seeds rockets to the front of the Grand National and then is disqualified under mysterious circumstances. Then the editor of the Messenger, John Gubbins, disappears. His nephew Rupert comes comes to stay with the Callendars during the Easter holidays and almost burns down the barn with his Alchemical experiments (trying to turn base metal into gold).
The plot continues to thicken. Every character in this book is funnier and crazier than the last. Berry, our touchstone of normality, tries to follow all the twists and turns of this hilarious, complex, thoroughly crazy story, getting as lost and confused as the reader. There's romance, intrigue, double-cross, triple-cross and the usual Verney sleight of hand.
Recommended for young and old who love puzzles and who enjoy the dotty family-based comedy of this fine British writer. Especially poignant for folks who've been to London, fans of the English countryside, lovers of horses and people who came of age in the 60s and 70s. This is intelligent writing that challenges the reader even as it tickles the funnybone.
England