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Dawn Undercover

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BfK No. 156 - January 2006

Cover Story
This issue’s cover illustration is from Graham Marks’ Tokyo. Graham Marks is interviewed by Julia Eccleshare. Thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for their help with this January cover.

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Dawn Undercover

Anna Dale
(Bloomsbury Publishing PLC)
368pp, 978-0747574071, RRP £10.99, Hardcover
8-10 Junior/Middle
Buy "Dawn Undercover" on Amazon

11-year-old Dawn Buckle is recruited by secret intelligence organisation S.H.H. (Strictly Hush-Hush) to become a spy. She joins P.S.S.T (Pursuit of Scheming Spies and Traitors) and embarks on a top-secret undercover mission to infiltrate the sleepy village of Cherry Bentley and discover the whereabouts of missing spy, Angela Bradshaw.

Undercover agents, espionage and top-secret missions – ingredients that should produce a riveting suspense thriller, but instead Dale has turned out what can only be described as a flop. The third-person narrative is dialogue heavy, the tiresome acronyms are overdone and the lack of descriptive writing all combine to make Dawn Undercover a less than engrossing read.

Helpfully, the book’s glossary includes the following entry describing a secret code called ‘Ditchwater’: ‘consisting of such a dull letter that the person reading it gives up long before the end and therefore misses the message concealed in the postscript’. Need I say more? SG

Reviewer: 
Susan Goodsall
1
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