Tunnels of Terror

November 1, 2002
Gr 6-8-In the second installment in the series, Andrea Talbot and her younger brother travel back in time and interact with their grandfather and great aunt in the 1920s. A group of criminals is terrorizing shop owners and it is up to the four youngsters to stop them. Lending aid is a (gasp!) single mother and the Talbot siblings' great-great-grandmother. The pacing throughout is slow and deliberate; the first character through the tunnel is Tony, almost 60 pages into the story, with Andrea following 30 pages later. The middle section sets up the crime wave hitting Moose Jaw, and the final chapters quickly wrap up the story as the kids find a way to capture the bad guys on film and exonerate their future great-step-grandfather, who has been falsely implicated in the crime. After the mystery is sufficiently solved, Andrea and Tony successfully travel back to the present where Grandpa Vance and Aunt Bea are waiting for them. The text is loaded with details and the action comes in spurts. Dedicated fans of time-travel stories may enjoy the series, but most readers will find its pacing simply too slow.-Elaine Baran Black, Gwinnett County Public Library, Lawrenceville, GA

Copyright 2002 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.