Saturday, February 22, 2014

Lacey, Josh. The Sultan’s Tigers.

Lacey, Josh.  The Sultan’s Tigers.  Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt Brace  2013  298p  $16.99  ISBN 978-0-544-09645-5  ms  Mystery/Detective  VG-BN

The Sultan’s Tigers is the second volume in a quirky action adventure series about young Tom Trelawney and his thieving Uncle Harvey as they embark on a new globe-trotting adventure in India to recover family treasure.   Tom and Harvey are thrown together by a family funeral, during which Tom is still grounded for his participation in the adventures of the previous volume, The Island of Thieves.  Left alone in his grandfather’s house while the rest of the family goes out to dinner, Tom is roughed up by thieves searching for clues to a rajah’s golden treasure.  The thieves flee when unexpectedly interrupted, but continue to follow Tom and Harvey on their adventures.

The action-packed plot
, with its unbelievable (but engaging) twists and interesting characters, results in a nonstop page-turner that will satisfy the expectations of readers looking for a fun swashbuckling tale filled with danger, treasure-hunting, and thieves, plus a small glimpse of India thrown in for spectacle.  Tom hasn’t changed much since his last adventure.  Unrepentant, amoral, and easy-going, he looks after himself while Harvey pursues a fling with an itinerant tourist.  Too much action takes place for characters to be fully developed, but the banter between uncle and nephew is amusing.  It is Lacey’s gift for humor that tempers the recurring violence throughout the book and keeps readers turning pages (although they may also be drawn by the lure of lost treasure and a string of unbelievable risks, coincidences, double-crosses and escapes).

Summary: Tom and his Uncle Harvey set off for India to find the family treasure.  But they are not the only ones looking for it. 

Adventure-Fiction                                                 --Hilary Welliver

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