Down the Rabbit Hole (Echo Falls Series #1)

by Peter Abrahams

Overview

"My all-time favorite. Astonishing." (Stephen King)

Down the Rabbit Hole is the first book in the Echo Falls mystery series by bestselling crime novelist Peter Abrahams. Perfect for middle school readers looking for a good mystery.

Welcome to Echo Falls, home of a thousand secrets. In Down the Rabbit Hole, eighth grader Ingrid Levin-Hill is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or at least her shoes are. And getting them back will mean getting tangled up in a murder investigation as complicated as the mysteries solved by her idol, Sherlock Holmes.

With soccer practice, schoolwork, and the lead role in her town's production of Alice in Wonderland, Ingrid is swamped. But as things in Echo Falls keep getting curiouser and curiouser, Ingrid realizes she must solve the murder on her own—before it's too late.

"Deft use of literary allusions and ironic humor add further touches of class to a topnotch mystery," said School Library Journal. "Intriguing twists." Publishers Weekly agreed: "The fresh dialogue and believable small-town setting will tempt fans to visit Echo Falls again."

The next book in this Edgar Award-nominated series in Behind the Curtain, followed by Into the Dark.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060737030
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/25/2006
Series:	Echo Falls Series , #1
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.60(h) x 1.30(d)
Lexile:	680L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Peter Abrahams is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-five books, including the Edgar Award-winning Reality Check, Bullet Point, and the Echo Falls series for middle graders. Writing as Spencer Quinn, he is also the author of the Chet and Bernie series—Dog on It, Thereby Hangs a Tail, and To Fetch a Thief. He and his wife live in Massachusetts with their dog, Audrey.

Read an Excerpt

Down the Rabbit Hole

An Echo Falls Mystery

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By Peter Abrahams

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2006 Peter Abrahams
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0060737034

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Chapter One

Ingrid Levin-Hill, three weeks past her thirteenth birthday, sat thinking in her orthodontist's waiting room. You're born cute. Babies are cute. Not hard to guess why -- it's so everyone will forgive them for being such a pain. You grow a little older, and people say, "What beautiful hair," or "Get a load of those baby blues," or something nice that keeps you thinking you're still on the cuteness track. Then you hit twelve or thirteen and boom, they tell you that everything needs fixing. Waiting in the wings are the orthodontist, the dermatologist, the contact lens guy, the hair-tinting guy, maybe even the nose-job guy. You look at yourself in the mirror, really look at yourself, for the first time. And what do you see? Oh my God.

Two orthodontists divided the business in Echo Falls: Dr. Lassiter, who didn't mind pulling a tooth or two to speed things along, and Dr. Binkerman, who liked to say he'd turn in his badge before sacrificing a single tooth. One kind of parents sent their kids to Dr. Lassiter. Ingrid, whose parents were of the other kind, was well into her second year with Dr. Binkerman, and behind her braces lurked the same jumble of teeth she'd come in with in the first place. And bythe way, what stupid badge was he talking about? Ingrid flipped to another page of Seventeen. The glossy paper made an angry snapping sound.

Flirting Tips:
Where the Hotties Are

In the weight room, of course. So
it's important to get down with
all that weight room terminology.
Cut, ripped, reps, lats, pecs,
curls, dips, jacked, juiced -- is this
a weird lingo or what? Let's start
with reps. Reps is simply short for --

"Ingrid?"

Ingrid looked up. Mary Jane, the chairside assistant, stood in the doorway that led back to the operatories, the expression on her face a little exasperated, as though maybe she'd been calling Ingrid for some time. If so, Ingrid really hadn't heard. Reading -- it didn't matter what -- always did that to her.

"All set," said Mary Jane. Ingrid followed her. There were two chairside assistants: Mary Jane, who wore her gray hair in a bun and always had circles under her eyes, and a younger one, who changed every two months or so. Mary Jane motioned Ingrid to the chair and raised it just as Dr. Binkerman strode in, flexing his surgically gloved hands.

"And how's Ingrid today?" he said, looming into extreme close-up, his gaze locking on her teeth. Like Sherlock Holmes -- The Complete Sherlock Holmes had been sitting on her bedside table for years -- Ingrid was a habitual noticer of little things. Sherlock Holmes believed you could find out just about all you needed to know about people from little things; his method, as he told Dr. Watson more than once, was founded on the observation of trifles. Trifles were things like the single but surprisingly long white hair poking out of Dr. Binkerman's left nostril; the sleepy seed, lima bean colored, in the corner of his right eye; the pinprick-size blackhead on the end of his nose, a millimeter off-center. All these trifles added up to the glamorous Dr. Binkerman, hard-riding sheriff of the overbite range.

And what was the question? How's Ingrid today? "She's fine," said Ingrid.

"Open, please," said Dr. Binkerman. He peered inside her mouth, felt around in back, where the screws were, with his rubbery fingers. "Been wearing the appliance?" he said.

"Uh-huh," said Ingrid.

"Every night?" Dr. Binkerman drew back, looking at her whole face for the first time, fingers out of her mouth now so she could speak clearly ...

Continues...

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Excerpted from Down the Rabbit Hole by Peter Abrahams Copyright © 2006 by Peter Abrahams. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

Impatient with mother for being late for her ride to soccer, Ingrid Levin-Hill, eighth-grade Sherlock Holmes fan and amateur actress, makes an impulsive decision to walk, inadvertently becoming a witness in the murder case of Cracked-up Katie, the weird lady in the rundown house on the wrong side of town. Ingrid is afraid to come forward with her first-hand knowledge, fearing her parents' reprimand for leaving the neighborhood. Landing the lead role as Alice in the town's playhouse production of "Alice in Wonderland," she becomes more curious about the playhouse's past performers and a possible connection to Katie's youth. As the police investigation gets further away from the truth and the wrong suspects are arrested, Ingrid takes increasingly daring risks to solve the case herself and eliminate the evidence she left behind indicating her own suspicious involvement. Abrahams has crafted a suspenseful page-turning drama complete with misleading clues and gutsy midnight escapades that make for thrilling intrigue right up to the culminating drowning-in-the-river scene. Ingrid's plucky, if not foolhardy, behavior will have readers both rooting and worrying for her simultaneously as she continues, like Alice, to fall deeper and deeper into the mystery's unfolding. Harrowingly absorbing. (Fiction. YA)

Kirkus Reviews