The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd - Review

 

If you haven't heard of this book before, I have mentioned it on this blog before. In 2020 I read The Guggenheim Mystery by Robin Stevens, which is kind of a sequel to this book. Siobhan Dowd made notes and a title for her sequel, but then she died before she wrote it, so Robin took the characters and wrote the sequel. I really liked the book so got this one and then forgot about it for five years. When we were unpacking all my books after the move I found this and picked it up, thinking it was about time. And I really enjoyed it, so that's good. I didn't really remember the characters so it was nice to get to know them again, from Siobhan herself. 

The protagonist of the book is Ted, who is about eleven or twelve, I think. He is autistic. He lives with his parents and sister, Kat, who's about fourteen. His special interest is the weather and he doesn't really like things outside of his routine. 

One day in the holidays, Ted's mum's sister Gloria turns up with her son, Salim. They are about to move to New York but stay with Ted's family for a bit. Salim doesn't want to move to New York but wants to do some tourist stuff in London first. Mum, Gloria, and all the kids go into London to go on the London Eye. But the queue is huge so the mums have a sit down and the kids join the queue. Then a man offers the kids one ticket to jump the queue; Ted and Kat decide to give it to Salim as he's never been on the Eye before. He goes up, but when the capsule he is in comes back round half an hour later he doesn't get off it. 

At first Ted and Kat think they've got it wrong, so they wait a bit longer. But no, Salim doesn't turn up. Later the family reports Salim missing to the police. He had a disposable camera so Ted and Kat have the film developed, hoping that they might get some clues about what has happened to him. They can see the man who gave them the ticket, and deduce where he was working. They follow a trail - while their parents are trying to keep them contained and keep Gloria feeling okay while Salim is missing - to try to get to the bottom of what has happened. 

It's a good mystery and I really liked how Ted and Kat's relationship developed through the book. It's a good middle grade book, I'm glad I finally got round to it. I'm giving it four out of five.