![]() It is discovered that a circular piece of ice was sawn from the surface of the frozen lake and that the boxes were lowered down into the water before ice formed over them once more. Martin and the police arrive by helicopter and a search ensues for the boxes that Stan and Jim removed from the cellar. It could even be said that The Rat-a-Tat Mystery is less engaging than an episode of Scooby Doo, since Blyton fails to give us the satisfaction of seeing the villains apprehended at the end of the story. Substitute Velma, Daphne, Fred, Shaggy and Scooby for Roger and the others and you have a typical Scooby Doo scenario, in which spooky happenings invariably turn out to have been engineered by crooks in order to scare people away. They intend to retrieve them when the snow melts and the roads are no longer impassable - but how can things possibly go according to plan when there is a bunch of meddling children on the trail? Stan and Jim manage to remove the boxes one night and hide them elsewhere, locking Snubby in the cellar in the process. What is the explanation of these peculiar goings-on? On investigation, the children discover that the knocking, the footprints and the "snowman" were the work of two men - Stan and Jim - who were desperate to frighten away the occupants of the house so that they could collect boxes of stolen guns which they had hidden in the cellar. When the children try to summon help, they find that the telephone lines are down. The lion's head door-knocker knocks by itself a trail of footprints leads to the door, yet there are no prints leading away and the face of a snowman appears at the window. ![]() Right on cue, spooky things begin to happen. Hmm - a strong feeling of déjà vu for the reader here, I think! No-One who knocks on the door to warn of traitors. The house is "like a house in a story book," it has "seen a bit of history" and there is a legend about a mysterious Mr. ![]() The Rat-a-Tat Mystery has all the ingredients of a thriller - or perhaps "chiller" would be a more apt word for a story set in a snowy January landscape! Roger, Diana, Barney, Snubby and Loony go to stay in a remote lakeside house, where they become snowbound. When someone bangs on the door in the middle of the night but then mysteriously vanishes, faces peep in at windows, snowmen seemingly move by themselves and the phone is suddenly cut off, the children decide that it's their job to unravel the mysteries surrounding Rat-a-Tat House. German: Rätsel um den wandelnden Schneemannĭutch: Robbert Jan en de geheimzinnige Mister Xīrief Summary by Robert Houghton: Staying at a creepy old house in the country surrounded by snowed-up roads, cut off from civilisation, Roger, Diana, Snubby and Barney witness strange goings-on, all tied up with ancient old legends of how the great knocker on the front door always bangs by itself to warn that traitors are in the house. Review by Anita Bensoussane Foreign Titles
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |