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Snake Bite (Young Sherlock Holmes #5)

4.2 of 5 stars 4.20 · rating details · 69 ratings · 8 reviews

How can three men be bitten by the same poisonous snake… in different parts of Shanghai? Who wants them dead, and why?

The answer seems to lie in a message hidden in a diagram like a spider’s web. But solving it leads to an even more urgent question: what has all this got to do with a plot to blow up an American warship? Sherlock is about to brave terrors greater than any h...more

Hardcover, 352 pages

Published September 27th 2012 by Macmillan Children's Books (first published September 1st 2012)

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Dec 25, 2012 VaultOfBooks rated it 3 of 5 stars

By Andrew Lane. Grade A.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle may have died (and may his soul rest in peace) but his creations are immortal.
Sherlock Holmes – the greatest detective ever – is back yet again in print and in a different light. This time he is back so that even little children cannot miss reading about the art of detection of Sherlock Holmes.
How can three men be bitten by the same poisonous snake… in different parts of Shanghai? Who wants them dead, and why?

The answer seems to lie in a message hi...more By Andrew Lane. Grade A.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle may have died (and may his soul rest in peace) but his creations are immortal.
Sherlock Holmes – the greatest detective ever – is back yet again in print and in a different light. This time he is back so that even little children cannot miss reading about the art of detection of Sherlock Holmes.
How can three men be bitten by the same poisonous snake… in different parts of Shanghai? Who wants them dead, and why?

The answer seems to lie in a message hidden in a diagram like a spider’s web. But solving it leads to an even more urgent question: what has all this got to do with a plot to blow up an American warship? Sherlock is about to brave terrors greater than any he has faced before… The cast of characters includes- obviously our main character, Sherlock Holmes, but a younger version, a few of his friends – Cameron and Wu Fung Yi and his brother Mycroft.

To begin with, the cover design of the book is fascinating and will bowl you over. The blurb is also quite good. I cannot really summarize the story without giving the suspense away, but I’ll try: Holmes is kidnapped by what he and his brother Mycroft think is called the Pradol Chamber. Holmes and his two friends unravel the mystery and… well I’ll leave the rest to you to find out.
Lane has portrayed Holmes just like his older self. His science of deduction, his curiosity, and the all-encompassing eyes that miss nothing: it’s all there. While it doesn’t bear comparison to the Doyle edition, it’s good reading for young readers who are fans of The Famous Five, and Secret Seven.

Still, overall I think Mr. Lane has done a commendable job in converting a famous detective and using him to write a children’s book with just the right innocence and just the right amount of fun and mystery which keeps the readers flipping the pages. Highly recommended to children between ten to thirteen years of age. You have the chance to grow up (reading) with Sherlock Holmes. Grab it.

Originally reviewed at http://vaultofbooks.com/(less)

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Feb 08, 2013 Suzan rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone that's read the series

Loved this addition to the series. Young Sherlock has been separated from those he trusts and cares about and is on his own on a ship heading halfway around the world. He ends up in shanghai meeting a couple of new friends and trying to solve three murders while preventing a plot to destroy an american war ship and start a war between America and China. I like that it opens with Mycroft and Aymus' viewpoints so we're aware of what they know and are doing to try and reach Sherlock. Still the endi...more

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Oct 05, 2012 Rebecca Cartwright rated it 4 of 5 stars

Review
I really like the Young Sherlock series and this is no disappointment. As the series progresses the books are edging towards the Sherlock we all know but, much as with the Young James Bond series, I have given up hoping that they will actually give any real insight into how he becomes the man he does. I think that those would be necessity be very different books and wouldn’t really be suitable for children.
The books are very good at what they are trying to do though, which is tell an inter...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Darren Hartwell rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: action, adventure, mystery

This review first appeared on The Book Zone(For Boys) blog

Five books in and Andrew Lane's Young Sherlock Holmes books just seem to get better and better. I raced through the latest, Snake Bite, in a single sitting, and yet again I was left wanting more and more, and this may even be my favourite of the series so far.

Snake Bite is very different from the previous books in the series in that it hardly features any of the characters that have appeared in previous books. In fact, the only two that d...more This review first appeared on The Book Zone(For Boys) blog

Five books in and Andrew Lane's Young Sherlock Holmes books just seem to get better and better. I raced through the latest, Snake Bite, in a single sitting, and yet again I was left wanting more and more, and this may even be my favourite of the series so far.

Snake Bite is very different from the previous books in the series in that it hardly features any of the characters that have appeared in previous books. In fact, the only two that do make an appearance are Sherlock's brother Mycroft and his tutor Amyus Crowe, and this only in the book's prologue as they agonise over the disappearance of Sherlock. It would appear that he has been kidnapped, most likely by The Paradol Chamber, but for what reason we are left to speculate along with Mycroft and Crowe.

The first chapter proper opens with Sherlock at sea, on board the Gloria Scott, just off the southernmost tip of Africa. He still has little idea as to how he came to be on board the ship - he can remember falling asleep in his uncle's library, and the next thing he knew he was at sea, initially being treated as a stowaway. However, through hard work he has become accepted by the crew as almost one of them, and so begins his greatest adventure so far. An adventure that sees him travelling all the way to China, facing pirates along the way, and making new friends and, of course, new enemies along the way.

In previous books Andrew Lane has already done a considerable amount of fleshing out of his young Holmes, gradually giving him the skills, character traits and morals that Sherlockians the world over know and love. We have seen Sherlock learn to play the violin, we have seen the birth of his deductive powers and his desire to question, and we have seen Sherlock's very obvious sense of what is right and what is wrong. In this book Andrew Lane continues to give us the glimpses into how the adult Sherlock was 'made', as we see the young version learning Chinese, and also his first introduction to the martial arts of the Far East (and very useful these skills prove to be as well). We also see how Sherlock developed the ability to converse naturally with people who in those days would have seemed a long way below his station - a skill he puts to great use in Conan Doyle's stories.

Without wanting to spoil things for readers I will also mention that the ending of this book is not so cut-and-dried as in the previous stories. There were elements of it I was not so happy with (a certain letter rings a little false in my mind, but I am no historian and it may be very typical of society at that time, and it does explain a significant aspect of the adult Sherlock's character), but the author's note about the return of The Paradol Chamber in the next book was very welcome news.

I want to leave you with one short excerpt from the book that put a huge smile on my face. As in previous books, Andrew Lane likes to drop in the occasional huge nudge and a wink towards the future Holmes, and this is one I loved. Sherlock is on board the Gloria Scott, and is thinking to himself that Mycroft's policy of staying at home and therefore keeping safe might actually be a wise philosophy as working on board such a ship is a very dangerous occupation. However, he quickly dismisses this as it would mean missing out on all kinds of adventures. At this, he smiles to himself and thinks: "Maybe the thing to do was to make friends with a doctor - that way you could always ave treatment close at hand."(less)

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Oct 01, 2012 Kasi rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'm going to ignore the very last page of this book which contains Mycroft's letter to his brother an give this a five star rating. I enjoyed the book, the story was well paced and again interesting, with a nice little mystery involved. But I'm not happy with how Virginia and Sherlock seem to be going and so the last little bit seemed to be rather bitter to me.

May just be angry because I want to see them together or her die some kind of tragic and heart wrenching death which destroys Sherlock a...more

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Feb 06, 2013 Jack rated it 3 of 5 stars

This fifth vcolume of the series takes Shelock away from England and to China where he meets pirates and an american friend along the way. His old friends are mentioned and there is a surprise ending that sets the stage for the next tale! but I kind of missed the old setting!

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Nov 03, 2012 Cliodhna rated it 5 of 5 stars

http://cricketblob.blogspot.ie/2012/1...
This is a link to my blog, were I write reviews on books I have read.

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Mar 25, 2013 Glenn Armstrong rated it 5 of 5 stars

Just to say this bbook finishes on a cliffhanger.

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Mar 11, 2013 Liv rated it 5 of 5 stars

Although this book was amazing the ending is really annoying and I'm really p****d of with one of the characters. I also want to know who the hell edited this book, at one point instead of writing "woke up" they wrote "work up" I speculate a jordy editor!

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About Andy Lane

Andy Lane, who also writes under the name Andrew Lane, lives in Dorset with his wife, his son and a vast collection of Sherlock Holmes books, the purchase of which over the past twenty years is now a justifiably tax-deductible expense.

Andrew is the author of some twenty previous books. Some are original novels set in the same universes as the BBC TV programmes Doctor Who, Torchwood and Randall an...more

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Snake Bite (Young Sherlock Holmes #5)

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