Rex’s reviews of anything (but mostly books)

Every school has that one teacher; the one whose class no kid wants to take, and whose class no kid ever forgets. At the Truman School, that teacher is Mrs. Starch – suspected (by the students, of course) of having killed her own husband; rumored to have a house full of snakes; widely claimed to be a witch (or a similar epithet). When that formidable woman disappears on a biology class field trip into the Everglades, kids like Nick Waters and Marta Gonzalez feel a mixture of fear and relief… mostly relief. Most of them are pretty sure that their classmate Duane Scrod, Jr. – affectionately(?) known as “Smoke” – set the fire into which Mrs. Starch disappeared.

Problem being that the substitute filling Mrs. Starch’s sensible shoes is even worse than the real thing, so Nick and Marta go looking for their missing teacher (not without a severe case of nerves, though). Their expedition to the little house at the end of Buzzard Lane is just the start of a great adventure for the two friends. Along the way they’ll meet a couple of quiet heroes, a few greedy fools, a young man who’s finally decided to grow up, and a magnificent animal – and the two will also become heroes in their own right (and do a little growing up of their own).

And to think, it all started with a little pile of Scat.
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When we first met Thorn a couple of decades back, it was readily apparent that – like Cher, Madonna, or the artist formerly and now again known as Prince – he will always be a one-name kind of dude. So when some white-haired guy our hero’s never seen before in his life sticks out a meaty paw and says, “Daniel Oliver Thorn?” to him, it’s no secret that something is definitely amiss. Lots amiss, in fact… it seems that Thorn, the ultimate curmudgeon ever since being orphaned at the age of one day, has an actual family after all. After a fashion, that is. And his family – an uncle and a cousin he’d never known existed – has extremely interesting news for a guy who makes a hand-to-mouth existence tying bonefish flies.

That news is, apparently, extremely interesting for some other people as well; one of whom intends to see that Thorn’s most recent surprise will be his last. Seeing as he, that newfound family, and two old friends are all alone on a giant houseboat deep in the Everglades, the phrase “shooting fish in a barrel” has definite currency. The would-be assassin, however, must’ve failed to do some quite necessary research: this is Thorn we’re talking about… Read the rest of this entry »