The Young Detectives

More antique fiction, another ugly cover. The Young Detectives was first published in 1934 and this Puffin edition dates from 1975, so it was fairly antique even then. However, this book has enjoyed a long and popular life, with many readers reminiscing about their love for the story as children. 

I don't think it has aged well! The dialogue is stilted, the characters are thin (it seems the family were based on the author's own children, who share their names) and the action is predictable. There is a horribly complicated plot device involving doors that open and shut when a window is open or closed, which I struggled to follow, but results in people being trapped on one or other side of the secret passageway. The upper class children, whose family have rented the huge old seaside house and brought their servants along to wait on them, are very bossy to the mere fishermen and police they interact with, which really grates on a modern reader. Fro some reason, the way the mother addresses the oldest boy as 'my son' also irritated me. There are smugglers and caves and a wrecked ship and accomplished amateur theatricals, and luckily 'Daddy' (who is absent in America for most of the book) appears at an opportune moment to beat up one of the bad guys.

I didn't have much patience for The Young Detectives, especially compared with almost contemporaneous adventures like Swallows and Amazons. However, I can see that it might have been influential on later, better written stories of children's adventure.