REVIEW: The Larchwood Mystery
May. 20th, 2012 05:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllThe Larchwood Mystery: Pamela Mansbridge. Nelson 1959
This was slightly disappointing compared with the last and only Mansbridge book that I'd read (click on the tag for the review). It's serviceable and probably aimed at younger readers, as what little happens makes it rather easy to put two and two together about the incidents in the story and solve the mystery.
Thirteen-year-old Linda's widowed mother runs a guest house at a seaside resort. At the busiest time of the year, an old man who is obviously on a tight budget comes asking for a room, just as a prepaid guest they were expecting cancels. But the woman who helps Mrs Bridge says she can't work for the next few days, so Linda has to step up the duties that she normally carries out.
Linda and her pushier friend June scent a mystery about Mr Pellham, and it seems to revolve around Larchwood, a posh house just our of town that's now up for sale, but where something mysterious happened thirty years ago that Linda may be able to solve, when she's not at home helping out.
There's a little tension over Linda and June's different approach to things, Mrs Bridge's respectability and sense of what is right, but it's a very gentle story. There's an attempt to convey the flavour of living in the seaside resort where all the crowds have come to holiday too.
This was slightly disappointing compared with the last and only Mansbridge book that I'd read (click on the tag for the review). It's serviceable and probably aimed at younger readers, as what little happens makes it rather easy to put two and two together about the incidents in the story and solve the mystery.
Thirteen-year-old Linda's widowed mother runs a guest house at a seaside resort. At the busiest time of the year, an old man who is obviously on a tight budget comes asking for a room, just as a prepaid guest they were expecting cancels. But the woman who helps Mrs Bridge says she can't work for the next few days, so Linda has to step up the duties that she normally carries out.
Linda and her pushier friend June scent a mystery about Mr Pellham, and it seems to revolve around Larchwood, a posh house just our of town that's now up for sale, but where something mysterious happened thirty years ago that Linda may be able to solve, when she's not at home helping out.
There's a little tension over Linda and June's different approach to things, Mrs Bridge's respectability and sense of what is right, but it's a very gentle story. There's an attempt to convey the flavour of living in the seaside resort where all the crowds have come to holiday too.
