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Wallace Boys #10
Assignment in the Alps
In the tenth Wallace Boys series, Nigel and Bruce have been given an assignment by the Foreign Office of the United Kingdom. They have to try to help the faltering monarchy of the small Alpine Kingdom of Ruritania on the verge of a coup, the Wallace Boys find themselves in a desperate search for gold and art treasures taken from the fabulous Schloss Falkenstein and hidden in a remote mountain lake by the Nazis at the end of World War Two. To do this they must team up with the Crown Prince, the Archduke Karl-Franz; get the help of a band of gypsies; climb a glacier at night and paraglide down to the lake. But there is a deadline which is drawing dangerously near. Can they make it in time?
ebook
First published March 24, 2012
About the author
Duncan Watt
26 books1 followerBorn near Victoria Falls in what was then Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, Watt, the only child of British parents, traveled to more than 80 countries around the world. Finally settling in Singapore in 1976.
He worked as a teacher and administrator at the British Council until he retired in 1992.
For 16 years, he read the prime time news on Channel 5 for the then Singapore Broadcasting Corporation. He also hosted an afternoon program on Symphony 92.4, playing light classics, until 2004.
His 20-book Wallace Boys series was set in far-flung places such as Kariba, Zimbabwe, the Skeleton Coast and the Scottish Highlands. He researched the locations for his books as thoroughly as possible, making it a point not to write anything he himself had not experienced.
Watt was diagnosed with liver cancer in June 2016. He died on 7 September 2017 at the age of 74.
He worked as a teacher and administrator at the British Council until he retired in 1992.
For 16 years, he read the prime time news on Channel 5 for the then Singapore Broadcasting Corporation. He also hosted an afternoon program on Symphony 92.4, playing light classics, until 2004.
His 20-book Wallace Boys series was set in far-flung places such as Kariba, Zimbabwe, the Skeleton Coast and the Scottish Highlands. He researched the locations for his books as thoroughly as possible, making it a point not to write anything he himself had not experienced.
Watt was diagnosed with liver cancer in June 2016. He died on 7 September 2017 at the age of 74.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 22, 2020
Another exciting adventure for the Wallace brothers as they are recruited to, unofficially, interfere with the overthrow of the monarchy of Ruritania.
My only criticism is that the earlier books were set in real countries and this one wasn't. With the exception of Mischief in 'The Mousetrap', the settings were unfamiliar so they seemed exotic but real. This book was set in a fictional country because, the author explains at the end, the available real countries didn't quite fit the adventures that he had in mind for the boys.
My usual nitpicking: Glaciers don't wind UP mountains.
It is common knowledge that gold bars are heavy. More precisely, a standard gold bar weighs 400 troy oz which is around 27 pounds or 12.4 kilograms each. Three of them would be 81 pounds.
After reading most of Watt's earlier books in paperback, it was an ordeal to read this one on Kindle. I don't know how the text was reproduced for Kindle but it couldn't have been edited, there were numerous misspelled words and even a whole paragraph repeated in one place. The illustrations were almost useless. Watt frequently uses real photographs that are only adequately reproduced in the paperbacks and are horribly reproduced on Kindle. I am not at all a fan of footnotes in fiction anyway and going back and forth to read the footnotes, which were end notes on Kindle, was painful and then to find out that only two were actually useful.
My only criticism is that the earlier books were set in real countries and this one wasn't. With the exception of Mischief in 'The Mousetrap', the settings were unfamiliar so they seemed exotic but real. This book was set in a fictional country because, the author explains at the end, the available real countries didn't quite fit the adventures that he had in mind for the boys.
My usual nitpicking: Glaciers don't wind UP mountains.
It is common knowledge that gold bars are heavy. More precisely, a standard gold bar weighs 400 troy oz which is around 27 pounds or 12.4 kilograms each. Three of them would be 81 pounds.
After reading most of Watt's earlier books in paperback, it was an ordeal to read this one on Kindle. I don't know how the text was reproduced for Kindle but it couldn't have been edited, there were numerous misspelled words and even a whole paragraph repeated in one place. The illustrations were almost useless. Watt frequently uses real photographs that are only adequately reproduced in the paperbacks and are horribly reproduced on Kindle. I am not at all a fan of footnotes in fiction anyway and going back and forth to read the footnotes, which were end notes on Kindle, was painful and then to find out that only two were actually useful.
Displaying 1 of 1 review