Hello dear readers! It’s your one and only Miss A. Misra!! I am here to tell you my opinions about a book. I recently read it because my mom got it to review for Blogchatter s It’s called The Mystery Hounders: Murder in the Jungle, written by Sutapa Basu. The blurb at the back of the cover mentions FOUR children’s names, but almost immediately later says: “JOIN THE FIVE MYSTERY HOUNDERS”. And that made me go like Four kids, five mystery hound-OH WAIT WHAT?
But, actually, the fifth person is A MOUSE. A pet mouse that belongs to one of the kids, is called Vicky. The other kids are Tara, Kabir, and Ishi.
Basically, it’s about four children who work together to solve a mystery, about disappearing tigers from the Nargarhole forest reserve. Vicky and Tara’s father, the DFO Vinay Misra, and his team are confused, because there are OVER 100 cameras secured everywhere in the forest! And, none of them appear to have caught any sight of the mysterious activity. The story starts off with an author’s perspective from the jungle. No one about, the animals are in peace. Suddenly, the hyena senses something and cries out. All animals run away fearfully and hide, There is a great banging noise and the sounds of an animal thrashing about.
After a while the hyena creeps out of his hiding place and finds sticky blood on the grass and leaves. Scared, he dashes off lest he be killed too.
DFO and his team investigate, and are surprisingly encountered by the Nawab who lives nearby. He takes too much of an interest in the matter and even suggests they leave the case be. That’s enough to make the mystery hounders suspicious! While the DFO warns the kids not to interfere, they can not help but take an interest. Also, the manager of all the security tapes and hacking in Nagarhole reserve is strangely distant and avoids all questions by yelling in people’s faces.
A park ranger is turning up everywhere.
Their kitchen maid is nervous for some reason.
A young child comes up and claims he knows where the tigers are gone.
Will the mystery hounders be able to solve the case? Will they be in time? Will the tigers be saved?
Honestly? This book was interesting to read. The plotline is one such where I HAVE NEVER read or encountered before. Most “mystery” Y/A fiction stories are of-
1. Robbery.
2. Kidnapping.
3. Paranormal stuff.
4. Occasionally murder, which can be found in books like Agatha Chrisitie’s but not that of Enid Blyton’s.
This was the first book I read about animal poaching and awareness to that matter. As I said, it was interesting. I cannot say it was extremely exciting, ( except for some parts, like when Vicky disappears.), nor can I say it was boring, or humorous. There is 0% funny side of the story, except for just the common sibling bickering. The plotline and the hacking stuff made me hooked on to book. The Nawab’s character is an interesting one, but I liked Ruby’s ( The kitchen maid) better because it was well hidden and rather surprising.
Something that made me smile was when the children are invited to tea at the Nawab’s mansion and they get super bored because the tea is too strong, the Nawab too strange, and topic of discussion too boring! This seems so common to all children when you and your family members are invited to someone’s house for a “tea and chat”, the discussion generally ends up being about children and their studies, or politics.
Some places in the book are just- “meh” where nothing really happens, the children just argue and the adults keep telling them to not interfere in the mystery. One thing I did not understand was the illustrations. Considering it was a medium-sized book, there were probably ONLY 5 pictures. And in the most unnecessary places. Where we might WANT a picture to better visualize, there is none. But for example, a cup of tea is mentioned somewhere and a HUGE picture of a cup is given. Seriously?
Anyhow, my rating is a 4 out of 5. Because it was actually well written , I rather approved of it!
This is part of the Blogchatter Book Review Program.