Dangerous Waters : : an Adventure on the Titanic

Locations
Call Number: Y Fiction / Mone, Gregory
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown Kids Books 4-week checkout	Y Fiction / Mone, Gregory	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown Kids Books 4-week checkout	Y Fiction / Mone, Gregory	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Determined to focus on work rather than books, as his father had, twelve-year-old Patrick Waters leaves Belfast as a steward on the Titanic, but the very wealthy Harry Widener arranges to tutor him, drawing Patrick into association with thieves seeking Harry's very rare edition of Francis Bacon's Essays.

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Middle Grade Titanic Mystery submitted by Meginator on August 31, 2019, 10:50pm Given that I am a person who has seen the film Titanic countless times and who also happens to work in a rare book library, this novel could hardly have found a more sympathetic reader. Happily, Gregory Mone’s middle grade mystery offers an interesting twist on conventional Titanic stories that feels genuinely different from much of the extant literature. Mone’s clever placement of his protagonist, the aptly named Patrick Waters, in a unique (and just plausible enough) position to experience the ship’s boiler rooms and first-class areas allows readers to understand much of the historical context, and the requisite cameo appearances by real-life passengers go slightly deeper than the regular rotation. The mystery itself concerns a particularly intriguing early edition of Francis Bacon’s Essaies, and Patrick’s allies and villains both make the case for the importance of rare books, which I find absolutely delightful. Much of the dialogue is a bit on-the-nose, particularly where it concerns the book’s central themes and Patrick’s emotional arc, but the plot offers enough unexpected twists and turns to keep everything moving along at a relatively brisk clip. Mone’s depiction of the sinking is realistic but muted, well-tailored to a middle grade readership, and he nicely manages to balance functional plot and thematic diversions. I would have enjoyed this book even if it wasn’t particularly good, but if you can get past the heavy-handed moralizing it is quite well-constructed indeed.