Review: Three in one – Wow!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 15, 2013
great to see three books I've loved and delighted in, the Wendy Darlin series, offered to the public as a boxed set. I loved Barbara Silkstone's first book, `The Secret Diary of Alice in Wonderland, Age 42 and three quarters.' And her next book was an equally attractive thriller with a connection to another much loved children's book, Wendy and the Lost Boys. Confession time - I've never actually read Peter Pan. (And why on earth not, you may well ask? I don't really know!) But I first saw the Walt Disney cartoon at quite a young age and was enthralled by it. I've since watched it with my children and found myself still loving it. So Barbara's new book held an immediate strong appeal for me.Wendy Darlin, like Barbara Silkstone's earlier heroine Alice Harte, is funny, feisty, and Stephanie Plum-like, but, unlike most of the very funny minor characters, she is a realistically drawn individual whom we connect to straightaway and for whom we find ourselves rooting throughout the book. Wendy is soft-hearted. She allows herself to be sucked into trouble with the terrible (but very amusing) villain Charlie Hook, captain of the Predator, a pirate ship in modern terms, purely because she can't turn down the appeals for help from Marni. Wendy doesn't even like Marni much, but she is the daughter of an old friend, and Wendy feels that she has to step in, and onto Hook's yacht. So here she goes, plunging into a set of events which are hair raising, exciting, and laugh out loud funny; and meeting up with a set of characters whose idiosyncrasies make them by turns appealing, revolting, funny and terrifying.Beginning with her husband Croc (Hook's enemy - representing the crocodile in the original) and Roger Jolley (attractive apart from his brown wingtip shoes, but introducing himself as one of the dreaded SEC people) Wendy collects a number of strange and fascinating people around her. The weird array made up of Joseph, Mary, Annie, and Granddaddy Earl has to be read to be believed - if then! We are in a fantasy world, with people - at least the minor characters - who, like those of Alice in Wonderland, are caricatures, but still in some sense real and easy to relate to. But at the end of the day, it's Wendy herself who sorts things out, solves the mysteries, and defeats the villain, while solving her own past hang-ups at the same time.Barbara Silkstone has a real knack of not only naming her characters, but also of creating their idiosyncrasies, to fit in with her original. Wendy's long lost boyfriend, Peter Payne, for instance, left her because he didn't want to grow up and face the real world. But Silkstone shows us the dangerous side of this attitude, not just its attraction, unlike Barrie. And the secret of The Lost Boys, and whom they turn out to be, is both original and convincing.If you like your thrillers to be fast moving, full of action, and with a surprise ending, this is for you. If you like your heroines warm hearted, brave, with a desire for justice but with occasional foolhardiness, this is for you. If you like a writer to be witty, skilful with words, and able to throw in the odd touch of enchantment in her descriptive passages, this is for you. (Mind you, you need to be happy with a fair bit of humour of the type not suitable for the original audience of Peter Pan or Alice, such as the recurring joke about Hook's UpUGo, which I won't spoil for you.) And if you like an ongoing touch of romance for your heroine, with various candidates for her affections, and a bit of a mystery as to whom she'll end up with, resolved beautifully at the end, this also is for you.Sound like your type of book? Wendy and the Lost Boys is definitely mine!Barbara Silkstone has an amazing knack of taking well known children's classics and turning them into hilarious adult stories which just get better and better. As the sequel to Wendy and the Lost Boys, London Broil has the advantage of telling us more about characters we've already learned to love. Wendy herself, the feisty, tender-hearted adventurer, is back with a bang; and Roger Jolley, the unexpected hero in the previous book, very attractive except for his brown wing-tipped shoes, is developed here into someone we feel is worthy of Wendy. Action packed, fast moving, and with just the right number of twists in the plot line, this is a book no one should miss. Well done, Ms Silkstone!Having enjoyed both the previous Wendy Darlin books I was delighted to see a third in the series published, and I've had as much fun reading this one as both the others. Wendy is a heroine you can't help liking. She is brave, resourceful and clever; but in spite of this she constantly gets into the sort of trouble that can be labelled as slapstick comedy. Her weapon of choice in this particular book is a marble ashtray, after her success with one right at the start in demolishing a villain who is attacking her lover Roger Jolley, but she doesn't hesitate to use anything else that comes to hand. Who else but Wendy Darlin would bodily tackle her newly met librarian friend Fiona to retrieve the tampon-like MUDD diviner which the friend has just 'borrowed', bring her adversary down, and then realise that she herself is actually completely naked? This is one of the many laugh out loud moments in this very enjoyable comedy mystery. And, yes, there is a very exciting and puzzling mystery as well. As Wendy floats off with Roger and Fiona in a river boat down the Nile, she thinks, 'The only thing missing was Agatha Christie.' Barbara Silkstone not only gives us great characters, continual action, a load of laughs and a gripping mystery, but she also describes her setting and brings it to life in a way which makes us feel we are really there. I've said this before about Barbara Silkstone's books, but if you enjoy the Stephanie Plum books, then this will suit you down to the ground. And how lucky you are to be able to get all 3 books in one boxed set, instead of having to wait for the next one. Enjoy!