Synopses & Reviews
A modern-day Robin Hood by a New York Times
bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author!
Robbie Forester has learned the hard way that life isn’t fair. So have her friends Ashanti, Silas and Tut-Tut. But Robbie and her friends—who call themselves the Outlaws of Sherwood Street—want to change that.
When Sheldon Gun, an evil business man, ends up killing Silas’s father so he can build a new apartment complex in Brooklyn, the Outlaws know it’s up to them to make Sheldon Gun pay. With street smarts, Silas’s inventions, and a little help from a charm bracelet, these friends know they can take on Sheldon Gun and win—at least, they hope so. If not, they may end up just like Silas’s dad. This story is filled with action, adventure, social justice and great friends--and is especially relevant during our current economy and the rise of the Occupy Everywhere movement. Perfect for fans of young detectives like Nancy Drew, Enola Holmes, and Gilda Joyce.
Peter Abrahams, who also writes the Chet & Bernie mysteries as Spencer Quinn, is the award-winning and best-selling author of the Echo Falls series as well as teen novels Reality Check and Bullet Point. His adult novel, The Fan, was turned into a feature film starring Robert DeNiro and Wesley Snipes. Stephen King has called Abrahams “my favorite American suspense novelist."
Review
"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." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Deft use of literary allusions and ironic humor add further touches of class to a topnotch mystery." School Library Journal
Review
"It is hard for adult writers to make the leap to children's books. Abrahams, a best-selling author, has made a graceful entry with his first young adult novel....There are lots of questions, some innocent sleuthing, and action from beginning to end." Children's Literature
Synopsis
Welcome to Echo Falls, home of a thousand secrets.
Ingrid 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!
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
A modern-day Robin Hood by a New York Times
bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author!
Robbie Forester has learned the hard way that life isn’t fair. So have her friends Ashanti, Silas and Tut-Tut. But Robbie and her friends—who call themselves the Outlaws of Sherwood Street—want to change that.
When Sheldon Gun, an evil business man, ends up killing Silas’s father so he can build a new apartment complex in Brooklyn, the Outlaws know it’s up to them to make Sheldon Gun pay. With street smarts, Silas’s inventions, and a little help from a charm bracelet, these friends know they can take on Sheldon Gun and win—at least, they hope so. If not, they may end up just like Silas’s dad. This story is filled with action, adventure, social justice and great friends--and is especially relevant during our current economy and the rise of the Occupy Everywhere movement. Perfect for fans of young detectives like Nancy Drew, Enola Holmes, and Gilda Joyce.
Peter Abrahams, who also writes the Chet & Bernie mysteries as Spencer Quinn, is the award-winning and best-selling author of the Echo Falls series as well as teen novels Reality Check and Bullet Point. His adult novel, The Fan, was turned into a feature film starring Robert DeNiro and Wesley Snipes. Stephen King has called Abrahams “my favorite American suspense novelist."
About the Author
Peter Abrahams is the bestselling author of Oblivion, The Fan, and Lights Out, for which he received an Edgar Award nomination. Mr. Abrahams makes his home in Falmouth, Massachusetts, with his wife and children. Behind the Curtain is the second book in the critically acclaimed Echo Falls series.
Author Q&A
Q. You have written several critically acclaimed adult novels including The Fan, A Perfect Crime and The Tutor, but Down the Rabbit Hole is your first book written for children. Did you find this to be a difficult transition? Which audience do you prefer writing for?
A. I loved writing this book. The truth is I didn't think much about the transition. The story unreels before the eyes of a 13-year-old girl, so the language of the book is her language. As for audience, it's tremendously gratifying to be entertaining young readers.
Q. Do you have a particular writing philosophy that you follow?
A. I'm very persnickety about writing. I have a million rules, but they all boil down to trying to do something original on every page.
Q. Ingrid Levin-Hill, the 13-year-old super sleuth and star of the Echo Falls series is a very multifaceted and believable character that the target reader can really relate to. Why do you think that is? Is she based on a particular person from your family?
A. Certainly the fact that I have four kids two boys, two girls was a big help in keeping things real. There are lots of dark patches in childhood, but what I remember most about my own is the feeling of exhilaration that comes with waking up to the world of human life. What surprised me was Ingrid's take on things that part wrote itself.
Q. Everyone seems to be in love with all of the characters in this book especially Grampy. Did anyone in your own family influence your writing? And if so, how?
A. My mother was a writer and taught me a lot when I was very young. A few years ago, I wrote down what she'd taught me in the form of Enid's Laws. There are six of them.
- Organization is everything.
- Fiction is about reversals.
- Torment your protagonist.
- Push everything as far as you can without contriving.
- Always advance the story.
- Be original.
Later I added a seventh: Be playful.
Q. Stephen King has noted you as his "favorite suspense novelist" and you've been compared to such mystery greats as Hitchcock, Grisham, Coombs, and Diehl. Were you a mystery reader when you were growing up?
A. I read all kinds of things, including mystery, but pure adventure was my favorite pirate stories, lost in the Arctic, hacking through deep jungle, all that.
Q. Fans of Down the Rabbit Hole will be thrilled to know the second book in the Echo Falls series is in the works. What we can expect from Behind the Curtain? Is it true that just as the first book has references to Alice in Wonderland this one plays to the Oz fans?
A. In Behind the Curtain, Ingrid and her friends are putting on the scene where Dorothy, Woodman, Lion and Scarecrow discover that the Wizard is a fraud. At the same time, a terrible threat has come to Echo Falls, even insinuating itself in Ingrid's family. When it's almost too late, Ingrid realizes that she literally doesn't know the half of it. I can also reveal that math continues to be Ingrid's undoing and that a piglet on Grampy's farm plays an important role.