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Mystery, adventure, murder, and an entertaining plot are only a few of the elements found in Joan Lowery Nixon�s �The Dark and Deadly Pool�. When Mary Elizabeth gets a summer job at a luxurious hotel�s health club, she gets a whole lot more than she bargained for. During one of her closing shifts at the pool, she is encountered by a creepy shadow coming out of the pool and tugging at her feet. Mouth gasping, eyes wide open, the shadow lets out a scream at Mary Elizabeth�s face and fades into the darkness of the water. When the chief of security checks the monitors, he and Mary Elizabeth find absolutely nothing. A chain of unusual events follows this incident and Mary Elizabeth along with her friend Francis join to get to the bottom of this mystery. Things are being stolen, including the expensive set of sofas at the hotel lobby, along with other things and a number of other odd ocurrences and it is Mary Elizabeth's and Francis' duty to uncover the secret. When two members of the health club mysteriously die, they realize this adventure is far more dangerous than they had imagined.
Three-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award, Joan Lowery Nixon specializes in mystery novels for young adults. Her talent often reaches young adult audiences due to her creativity in weaving stories that grab the reader's attention. Her characters are enjoyable and comical, and her stories are intriguing and scary. The reader can easily feel transported into the scene of the crime or into the chilling sensations her characters are experiencing. This novel is considered a romantic novel due to the adventure and challenge involved, as well as the main character's self consciousness due to her height. She wishes she could find someone who is taller than her and very handsome. She instead encounters Francis, who although charming and respectful, is four inches shorter than her. The author's touch of a budding relationship between the two main characters also adds to the characteristics required for a romance novel. Certainly an entertaining and fast-paced story.
Nixon, Joan Lowery. 1987. The dark and deadly pool. New York: Delacorte Press. ISBN: 0
385-29585-5. |
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