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Summary
Summary
Ted and Kat watched their cousin Salim board the London Eye. But after half an hour it landed and everyone trooped off--except Salim. Where could he have gone? How on earth could he have disappeared into thin air? Ted and his older sister, Kat, become sleuthing partners, since the police are having no luck. Despite their prickly relationship, they overcome their differences to follow a trail of clues across London in a desperate bid to find their cousin. And ultimately it comes down to Ted, whose brain works in its own very unique way, to find the key to the mystery. This is an unput-downable spine-tingling thriller--a race against time.
Reviews (2)
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate, Middle School) The best mysteries have at their centers gifted but very human sleuths -- their abilities balanced by equally significant flaws or idiosyncrasies. This one is no exception. Twelve-year-old Ted, who has Asperger's syndrome, is obsessed with weather patterns, the number of Shreddies in his cereal bowl, and the puzzle that is other people's emotions and actions. When his visiting cousin Salim disappears, seemingly into thin air -- Salim goes up inside a sealed capsule of the London Eye, a giant Ferris wheel-like ride, and doesn't come down -- Ted and his older sister (and nemesis) Kat join forces to solve the conundrum. Ted's uniqueness serves multiple purposes. As a detective, his literal, logical brain lets him step back from the fraught situation to see the solution. As a narrator, his need to observe people closely at all times lets us get to know the characters, especially Ted's family, unusually intimately. Not to mention himself: his hard-wired honesty, his never-ending struggle to make sense of the world around him, and his occasional unknowing naivetÄ (as when he lays awake thinking about "convection currents, isobars and isotherms [and] imagining the shipping forecast" and speculates, "Perhaps Salim had been doing the same") make him an especially sympathetic character. And the mystery itself? Worthy of its protagonist, with well-embedded clues and signposts young readers can easily follow -- at least in hindsight. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
When Ted's cousin Salim visits London, he insists on riding "The London Eye," an immense observation wheel. A stranger gives Salim a free ticket; Salim enters a passenger capsule; 30 minutes later, when the capsule returns from its rotation, Salim has vanished. What follows is an intricate mystery, related from the unique point of view of 12-year-old Ted, who has Asperger's Syndrome. Ted is a brilliant but literal thinker who sees things in things in terms of mathematical probabilities. His brain, though differently wired, is as efficient as a computer. It is precisely the logical mind needed to solve the mystery, and it saves Salim's life. This is a well-constructed puzzle, and mystery lovers will delight in connecting the clues, but what makes this a riveting read is Ted's voice. He is bright, honest, brave and very funny about his "syndrome" (his teacher has given him a cartoon code for recognizing the five basic emotions). The message, grippingly delivered, is that kids, even differently abled ones, are worth paying attention to. (Fiction. 9-14) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
