The Secret of the Silver Mines

Mary St. Onge-Davidson is president of the Essential English Centre in
Ottawa.

Barely recovered from his first adventure (The Mystery of Ireland’s
Eye, 1999), 13-year-old Dylan Maples is back. This time Dylan must
follow his parents to the mining town of Cobalt, Ontario, during the
bitter cold of a northern Canadian winter. Dylan’s father, a lawyer,
has been hired to find a fortune of silver that was either stolen or
hidden from his client’s grandfather at the turn of the 20th century.
When no one in Cobalt is willing to help Mr. Maples in his search, Dylan
teams up with a new friend, Wynon Dixon, and embarks on his next
action-packed adventure.

Shane Peacock’s young protagonist is bright, sensitive, and not
without a sense of humor, and he comes complete with the language and
peculiarities of a teenage boy. The novel’s realistic dialogue and
fast-paced action is filled with laughs and gasps from beginning to end.
A hand-drawn map of Cobalt at the beginning of the book helps readers
track the story. The Secret of the Silver Mines is a riveting piece of
fiction. Highly recommended.