REVIEW: The Luck of the Melicotts
Oct. 19th, 2014 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllThe Luck of the Melicotts: Monica Marsden Brock Books 1951
The title struck me, as I’d been making comparisons with Saville’s books when reviewing the pervious book in this series The Manor House Mystery. As with The Luck of the Sallowbys, the word ‘luck’ refers to an artefact belonging to a family that is associated with bringing good luck to that family, but which has gone missing. The plot of both books, however, differs wildly, with much less happening in this book, which was published before the Jillies’ adventure.
This story does not, as I expected, follow on immediately from The Manor House Mystery. However, sickness is yet again a useful plot contrivance for Marsden. The Jacks, who are ‘identical’ redheaded twins (there is a much higher incidence of such twins in children’s literature than real life, isn't there?), otherwise known as Jack and Jacqueline, have had measles. The AMPs have not, but have not been allowed to return to school and had been kept in quarantine. Angela, Michael and Patricia are a little grouchy as a result of being stuck indoors by the January weather. When they are left out, they fall upon Dominic Melicott, newly moved into a nearby big house. Delicate and a little lonely, he’s delighted to meet them. We never learn how old he is, but he befriends Michael in particular.
The trio are in a hurry to introduce him to the Jacks (who seem to suffer no worse effects than parental mollycoddling after their bout of measles). Then they find out about the missing Luck and decide to solve the mystery, although it seems that the family has not suffered much bad luck as the result of its disappearance several years ago. The children are determined to find it, but when the Melicotts are burgled and Dominic finds a piece of paper with code on it, the Luck becomes less important.
A policemen rather improbably lets the six children into his confidence and in on the resulting action.
The teasing/bickering on the last book continues, even with the expansion to six main characters. It felt a bit more perfunctory and there are no footnotes promoting the other books in the series.
The title struck me, as I’d been making comparisons with Saville’s books when reviewing the pervious book in this series The Manor House Mystery. As with The Luck of the Sallowbys, the word ‘luck’ refers to an artefact belonging to a family that is associated with bringing good luck to that family, but which has gone missing. The plot of both books, however, differs wildly, with much less happening in this book, which was published before the Jillies’ adventure.
This story does not, as I expected, follow on immediately from The Manor House Mystery. However, sickness is yet again a useful plot contrivance for Marsden. The Jacks, who are ‘identical’ redheaded twins (there is a much higher incidence of such twins in children’s literature than real life, isn't there?), otherwise known as Jack and Jacqueline, have had measles. The AMPs have not, but have not been allowed to return to school and had been kept in quarantine. Angela, Michael and Patricia are a little grouchy as a result of being stuck indoors by the January weather. When they are left out, they fall upon Dominic Melicott, newly moved into a nearby big house. Delicate and a little lonely, he’s delighted to meet them. We never learn how old he is, but he befriends Michael in particular.
The trio are in a hurry to introduce him to the Jacks (who seem to suffer no worse effects than parental mollycoddling after their bout of measles). Then they find out about the missing Luck and decide to solve the mystery, although it seems that the family has not suffered much bad luck as the result of its disappearance several years ago. The children are determined to find it, but when the Melicotts are burgled and Dominic finds a piece of paper with code on it, the Luck becomes less important.
A policemen rather improbably lets the six children into his confidence and in on the resulting action.
The teasing/bickering on the last book continues, even with the expansion to six main characters. It felt a bit more perfunctory and there are no footnotes promoting the other books in the series.
