Look Out, Secret Seven

This is the second to last book in the series, published in 1962, when Enid Blyton's mental capacity was just starting to decline. In that sense this is like the Famous Five, where the penultimate book is still quite enjoyable and young readers will probably notice nothing amiss, but older readers will realize that something is a bit off, starting to be out of character. Peter, for example, here forgets their password, which is something that he would have never done when Blyton was at the height of her powers.

On the other hand, the story is still enjoyable, and it has a higher sense of danger than most other Secret Seven books. It's always within the limits of a book for very young readers, of course. This is not even like the show more Adventure series by the same author, targeted to older children. Here the bad guys would not really hurt the child detectives, at most capture them and set a dog to prevent them from getting away until the villains have plenty of time to make their escape. That whole scene with the dog is a bit weird and unconvincing, part of this vague feeling of something feeling off.

There's also not much of an investigation; the clues mostly get to them on their own, but that's something that also happens in many other Secret Seven books. For more elaborate investigations by a band of children you'll have to read the Five Find-Outers series by the same author, meant also for older children.

This book does have nice moments, like Peter making sure that Colin personally returned the stolen medals to the old general to fulfill his promise (Colin had felt sorry for the old man's grief and, without thinking, had promised him that he'd recover his medals).

Susie saves the day, too, which is nice to see, given that she is such a good antagonist throughout the series. She wont even appear in the last book, where Blyton's decline is much more evident. show less

The BBC audiobook narrator read too fast for me.

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