The Castle on Deadman's Island

by Curtis Parkinson

Overview

A death, a curse, a ghost, nasty people . . . an excellent new mystery!

Intrigue. An eccentric millionaire. A woman’s disappearance. A child’s skeleton. A ghost. A towering castle. A secret tunnel. All of these and more make up this compelling new mystery novel by award-winning author Curtis Parkinson.

When the owner of the castle on Deadman’s Island dies, his bizarre will leaves it to three of his friends who hate each other. Dark schemes follow, and the curse of the castle, entrenched forever in local lore, strikes again.

Neil, Graham, and Crescent, the main characters from Death in Kingsport, become involved when Graham’s Aunt Henrietta, who is bequeathed one-third ownership of the castle, mysteriously disappears.

Has she gone on a trip, as some insist, or is there more to the story? Graham, with a sense of foreboding and the help of his friends, is determined to find out before it’s too late.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780887768934
Publisher:	Tundra
Publication date:	04/14/2009
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	730L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 14 Years

About the Author

Curtis Parkinson grew up in Kingston, Ontario. He graduated from Queen’s University and worked as a chemical engineer for many years. Then he moved to the Caribbean to live on a sailboat and write. As he says, “Many rejections later, the cat fell off the boat one night, and this story became my first published work, a picture book.” Two more picture books and several short stories followed. Storm-Blast, his first novel, set in the Caribbean, was nominated for the Red Cedar Award, as was his next book, Sea Chase, which was also nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Juvenile Crime. Curtis’s third novel, Domenic’s War, set in Italy during WWII, was nominated for a Silver Birch Award and has been translated into Italian. A mystery novel, Death in Kingsport, followed. It takes place in a small town where nothing is as it seems.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Death in Kingsport:
“. . . a fast-paced murder mystery chock full of historical fact . . .”
— The Kingston Whig-Standard

Praise for Domenic’s War:
“[The protagonist’s] stories of strength, resourcefulness, and survival are deftly placed within the context of the Monte Cassino campaign and will give readers a poignant look at the ways in which the war affected average citizens.” — School Library Journal

“. . . a heartwarming, uplifting . . . fine book . . . this action-packed narrative of that memorable and bloody battle is also a story of selfless generosity, friendship, and heroism.” — VOYA

From the Publisher

Gr 6–9—The castle on Deadman's Island is seemingly cursed; when it opened in the early 20th century, a guest drowned. Then, throughout the years, a string of unexplained deaths and disappearances occurred. Now, it's 1942, and Graham, Neil, and Crescent, three friends who became amateur sleuths in Death in Kingsport (Tundra, 2007), are on their way to the island to warn Graham's Aunt Etta that she may be in grave danger. She has just inherited one-third of the castle and is spending two weeks there alone. Unfortunately, her two co-owners are not the nicest men in town. When the teens get to the island, they discover that she has disappeared. They find a secret passage, a child's skeleton, Etta's shoes, and a hidden suitcase and uncover a deadly plot. The mystery is set up well, but there are not many surprising twists. Kids may find that they know exactly what is going to happen before the characters do and become bored.—Jessica Miller, New Britain Public Library, CT

School Library Journal

In this rough-cut, Hardy Boys-style sequel to Death in Kingsport (2007), teen sleuths Neil, Graham and wholesomely libidinous sidekick Crescent repeatedly risk their lives to investigate a mysterious disappearance. Set largely in and around a Canadian castle with the requisite dark history, the plot not only features such customary tropes as a secret passage, oblivious adults, contrived murder attempts and bumbling police, but is positively punctuated with found notes, overheard conversations and conveniently timed revelations. Parkinson trots in new characters at need, has his young folk blithely commit crimes from breaking and entering to manslaughter without guilt or personal repercussions and in the end kills off two bad guys while letting the chief instigator (clumsily modeled on Lady Macbeth) go scot-free. Only the quick pacing is up to even Stratemeyer standards. (Mystery. 11-13)

Kirkus Reviews