Age 9+

Fans of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime may dislike this novel for being too similar. It is the narrative of a boy with Asperger’s syndrome and an interest in Sherlock Holmes who takes things at face value and solves a mystery in his family. (It is also from Haddon’s publisher.) And yet there are differences: Christopher, in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, was interested in maths; Ted, in The London Eye Mystery, is interested in meteorology. But the echoes have to be forgiven because Dowd’s story grips the reader from the opening chapter, in which Ted and his sister watch their cousin Salim enter a pod on the London Eye and follow its progress round the wheel; when the pod empties, Salim does not come out. The book recounts, with humour, insight and clarity, the events that lead up to and follow Salim’s disappearance and the compelling progress towards an explanation. Dowd’s first book, A Swift Pure Cry, was a deservedly acclaimed young adult novel. This second book, which is aimed at younger readers, demonstrates her versatility.

THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY by Siobhan Dowd

(David Fickling £8.99).

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