Peril at Plover Point

Dave Jenkinson is Associate Dean of the Faculty of Education at the
University of Manitoba.

Perkyns’s third novel sees her returning to the mystery genre and her
trio of juvenile sleuths, 13-year-olds David Marshall and Stephen
Barrett, and Stephen’s 11-year-old sister Mary, whom we first met in
The Mystery of the Hemlock Ravine. Late July finds David spending a very
boring vacation at the family’s recently purchased summer cottage on a
small Nova Scotia peninsula, Plover Point. David’s annoyance at being
stuck with the tedious chore of babysitting his 16-month-old brother,
Christopher, dissipates when he is joined by his two friends. Almost
immediately, suspicious events involving the three begin to occur. As
all good mysteries should, this one contains its share of appropriate
ingredients: suspicious characters, threatening messages, enigmatic
happenings, sinister settings, dark nights, a kidnapping, a “chase,”
plus supportive but frequently absent parents. The book’s principal
weaknesses are twofold. First, the plot’s flow is interrupted: Perkyns
has the three children attend a week-long music camp in New Brunswick.
Though the episode does contribute somewhat to Mary’s character
development, its contribution to the mystery’s plot is minimal.
Second, because Perkyns’s group of villains remains so distanced,
their motivations are not available to readers. While the central
juvenile characters speak and behave in ways beyond their years, Peril
at Plover Point remains an acceptable addition to collections serving
the grade 4 to 6 audience, which seemingly has an inexhaustible appetite
for mysteries.