Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Summary and Reviews of The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd

The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd

The London Eye Mystery

by Siobhan Dowd
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • Feb 12, 2008, 336 pages
  • Paperback:
  • May 2009, 336 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Book Summary

When Salim mysteriously disappears from a sealed pod on the London Eye, everyone is frantic. Even the police are baffled. Ted, whose brain runs on its own unique operating system, and his older sister, Kat, overcome their prickly relationship to become sleuthing partners. They follow a trail of clues across London in a desperate bid to find their cousin, while time ticks dangerously by .... For ages 9+.

Ted and Kat watched their cousin Salim board the London Eye. But after half an hour it landed and everyone trooped off – except Salim. Where could he have gone? How on earth could he have disappeared into thin air? Ted and his older sister, Kat, become sleuthing partners, since the police are having no luck. Despite their prickly relationship, they overcome their differences to follow a trail of clues across London in a desperate bid to find their cousin. And ultimately it comes down to Ted, whose brain works in its own very unique way, to find the key to the mystery. This is an unput-downable spine-tingling thriller–a race against time.

My favorite thing to do in London is to fly the Eye.

On a clear day you can see for twenty-five miles in all directions because you are in the largest observation wheel ever built. You are sealed into one of the thirty-two capsules with the strangers who were next to you in the queue, and when they close the doors, the sound of the city is cut off. You begin to rise. The capsules are made of glass and steel and are hung from the rim of the wheel. As the wheel turns, the capsules use the force of gravity to stay upright. It takes thirty minutes to go a full circle.

From the top of the ride, Kat says London looks like toy-town and the cars on the roads below look like abacus beads going from left and right and stopping and starting. I think London looks like London and the cars like cars, only smaller.

The best thing to see from up there is the river Thames. You can see how it loops and curves but when you are on the ground you think it is straight.

The...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

A boy's spectacular and mystifying into-thin-air disappearance from a sealed chamber high above London launches this determined and thoughtful page-turner for middle-grade readers .... While the mysterious disappearance is intriguing, what Ted must do to understand it is truly exciting: To discover how and why his cousin vanished from a sealed pod, Ted breaches the closed chamber of his psyche and invites the world and the reader in...continued

Full Review Members Only (312 words)

(Reviewed by Jo Perry).

Media Reviews

The Times (London) - Nicolette Jones
Fans of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime may dislike this novel for being too similar .... But the echoes have to be forgiven because Dowd’s story grips the reader from the opening chapter,

Booklist
Starred Review. Everything rings true here, the family relationships, the quirky connections of Ted’s mental circuitry, and, perhaps most surprisingly, the mystery.

Kirkus Reviews
Starred Review. This is a well-constructed puzzle, and mystery lovers will delight in connecting the clues.

Publishers Weekly
Starred review. Grabs readers from the beginning and doesn't let go.

School Library Journal
Starred Review. A dense mystery tied together with fully fleshed out characters and a unique narrator.

Reader Reviews

Riley

Amazing
This book is amazing. I would love to read the whole thing. The author has done an good job.
Bookclub77NY

The London eye mystery
A great book with a unique ending that I adored. The characters themselves couldn't have been better! Thanks to Ted I know a lot of new facts! I suggest reading this book!
bob

The London Eye Mystery
Do you like a good mystery if yes this is the book for you! It is exiting and you can not stop reading! This is the best mystery I have ever read. You should read!
Boggie B

The london eye mystery
Very page-turning and very compulsive.

Write your own review!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



Interesting facts about the London Eye

The London Eye, the fantastic and graceful Millennium structure that dominates the skyline of 21st century London, is as much a character in the novel as Ted, his sister and the mystery.

  • It took seven years and the skills of hundreds of people from five countries to make the London Eye a reality.
  • Since opening in 2000, The London Eye has welcomed an average of 3.5 million passengers every year, making it the UK's most popular visitor attraction.
  • The height of the London Eye is 135m/147 yards (equivalent to 64 red telephone boxes piled on top of each other) making it the fourth tallest structure in London.
  • Instead of being suspended under gravity, the capsules turn within circular mounting rings fixed to the ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The London Eye Mystery, try these:

  • Al Capone Shines My Shoes jacket

    Al Capone Shines My Shoes

    by Gennifer Choldenko

    Published 2011

    About this book

    More by this author

    Moose and the cons are about to get a lot closer in this much-anticipated sequel to Al Capone Does My Shirts. Recommended for ages 10+.

  • Bird Lake Moon jacket

    Bird Lake Moon

    by Kevin Henkes

    Published 2010

    About this book

    More by this author

    When two boys come to spend the summer at Bird Lake, each is reeling from his own personal tragedy. Both boys arrive scarred and fragile, but as they become friends, the sharp edges of their lives smooth out and, slowly, they are able to start to heal.

We have 6 read-alikes for The London Eye Mystery, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Siobhan Dowd
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..