The Mystery of the Vanished Prince
ISBN: 9780006932024
Description
Only two weeks of the holidays are left and there's not a mystery in sight. Then a foreign prince disappears in the middle of the night - kidnapped!
Reviewed on 4th February 2015
Book nine of the series sees the group of young detectives take on an interesting mystery that once again is solved mostly by coincidence rather than real detective work. One of the things I've noticed re-reading this series as an adult is that it's not as rich a set of stories as I remembered, and the quality of the plots isn't really high enough.
There are some old character moments, but it tends to be the guest characters and only two of the regulars that are made the most of - it's almost as if Blyton has by this point given up on her original creations and needs to bring in outsiders to construct a story.
The worst problem though is that the book hasn't stood the test of time, and features what will nowadays be interpreted as racist stereotyping and not really appropriate reading material for youngsters. Not a massive loss I feel in this book which is hardly as exciting an interesting as some of the earlier stories.
