Big Six

Swallows and Amazons #9

by Arthur Ransome

In this (more or less) sequel to the adventures of Coot Club, Arthur Ransome returns once more to his beloved Norfolk Broads where trouble is again brewing for Joe, Bill, and Pete, the three boatbuilders' sons who (more or less) live full-time aboard the Death and Glory and the three Coots, Tom, Dorothea and Dick. The problem seems to be that boats are constantly being set adrift, and all the evidence points squarely at the three Death and Glories. In a clever bit of detective work, and with some help from a sophisticated photographic trap, the Big Six manage to exonerate themselves and catch the villains.Of course, this book, like all Ransome titles, is about a lot more than clever detective work; it has the smell of water and tarred rope, the sound of birds, and the plight of children left to their own devices and coping with everything from catching monster pike to trapping midnight eels.Ransome, who wrote these imperishable books, spent his childhood in England's Lake District, and after a career in journalism that took him to Russia (where he married Trostsky's secretary), China, and Egypt (interspersed with summers of cruising through the Baltic Sea and the canals of Europe), he retired to Coniston where he could practise his favorite pastimes of sailing and fishing and where he wrote Swallows and Amazons. What sets these books apart from other books of the period is both his attention to detail and his admirable ability to provide a wealth of practical information. If kids still exist who wish to know how to read a compass, handle a main sheet, reef a sail, bait a hook, or pitch a tent, these are the books they'll embrace.

Genres: Childrens, Fiction, Adventure, Classics, Young Adult, Mystery, Audiobook

424 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1940

About the author

Arthur Michell Ransome (January 18, 1884 – June 3, 1967) was an English author and journalist. He was educated in Windermere and Rugby.

In 1902, Ransome abandoned a chemistry degree to become a publisher's office boy in London. He used this precarious existence to practice writing, producing several minor works before Bohemia in London (1907), a study of London's artistic scene and his first significant book.

An interest in folklore, together with a desire to escape an unhappy first marriage, led Ransome to St. Petersburg, where he was ideally placed to observe and report on the Russian Revolution. He knew many of the leading Bolsheviks, including Lenin, Radek, Trotsky and the latter's secretary, Evgenia Shvelpina. These contacts led to persistent but unproven accusations that he "spied" for both the Bolsheviks and Britain.

Ransome married Evgenia and returned to England in 1924. Settling in the Lake District, he spent the late 1920s as a foreign correspondent and highly-respected angling columnist for the Manchester Guardian, before settling down to write Swallows and Amazons and its successors.

Today Ransome is best known for his Swallows and Amazons series of novels, (1931 - 1947). All remain in print and have been widely translated.

Arthur Ransome died in June 1967 and is buried at Rusland in the Lake District.

Reviews

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably my least favourite Ransome and I've never previously been able to work out why. But I think it's for two reasons:

1. Quite a lot of it is actually quite miserable. It's no fun being hounded when you're innocent and even when Dick and Dot turn up, it's still quite hard going for the Death and Glories.

2. There is stuff Dot isn't allowed to do just because she's a girl. I can't seriously believe for a second that the creator of Nancy Blackett thought this was correct - it's Mrs Barrable's attitude, not Ransome's, and the writer's intention is not to put girls in their place but to provide a credible reason for Pete to be the one that is in charge of the camera at the critical moment (and therefore rack up the tension a bit). But - probably because it's so out of place in Ransome's books - I think this sidelining of Dot has always slightly annoyed me.

It's a shame, really, because in other respects it's a Ransome so therefore it's brlliant. The plot is excellent - a really good whodunnit, with a suitably tense climax. The sub-plot, of the enormous pike, is also one of the best tales Ransome ever tells. Port and Starboard are away from home, so there are fewer characters for Ransome to keep organised. And he captures perfectly what people say and how they feel and what they do - I particularly love it when the Death and Glories find themselves rich beyond their wildest dreams. Definitely worth reading, as are all Ransome's books, even if it's not my favourite.

[Tharindu Dissanayake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back to another adventure of the D's and Coots, and again without Amazon's and Swallows, just like in Coot club. The underlying set of characters are more or less the same as Coot Club, but goes in to more detailed descriptions on each.

I liked this better than Coot club, but the author has spoiled me so much with Swallows and Amazons (original cast), it is starting to feel depressing when those are missing from a story now. But I guess the change of cast helps a lot with keeping variety.

As for the story, it goes without staying, it is entertaining as always.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unaccountably, on my last read through of the Swallows and Amazons series, I skipped this one. I never was quite as attached to the entries set in the Norfolk Broads, and furthermore, my copy is a paperback, so wasn't part of the nice row of hardbacks on my shelf. Anyway, needing a comfort read, but not wanting to go through all the books again just yet, I picked up this volume. It turns out, beloved series of my childhood or not, The Big Six isn't a comfort read! Bill Pete and Joe, the "Death and Glories" (so named after the little boat they sail together) are falsely accused of unmooring boats and letting them drift away (because apparently hooligans gotta hooligan). The hostility they face from pretty much everybody in their little community and the unfairness of it all aren't much fun to read about. Nonetheless, I read it all pretty much in the course of the afternoon.

What I like best in this book is how Dorothea, in previous volumes an ineffectually dreamy character, and the only girl in this particular adventure, here takes charge and comes into her own, as she, her scientifically minded brother Dick, and boring Tom Dudgeon the doctor's son turn sleuth to exonerate their younger friends. Dot's imagination (and familiarity with the detective story genre!) enable her to envision the motives of the real perpetrators and foresee what they're likely to do next. It's lovely how beautifully the very different strengths of Dick and Dot complement each other in this story.

The ending is very exciting. I feel a bit wistful though that I can't take it quite at face value as I did in my youth After George Owen and his chum are photographed in the act of pushing off a boat in the dead of night (thanks to a devilishly tricky bit of sneaky 1930s flash photography), everybody instantly apologizes to the Death and Glories, and everybody likes them again. How simplistic that seems in these wretched times of ours, when people believe what they have already decided to believe no matter what hard evidence they're confronted with. Probably even in the 1930s Bill Pete and Joe would still have had to deal with lingering suspicion and unpleasantness. Another thing my grown up perspective noticed on this reading is that the suspense of whether or not Dick can get the photo printed in time to disprove George's claim that it they who caught the D&Gs unmooring the Cachalot rather than vice versa doesn't really matter -- because the Cachalot's owner only has to appear on the scene saying he was in on the plot for George's lie to be exposed. Ransome knows this I think, but with masterful subterfuge keeps us reading white knuckled. The scene with Port and Starboard's Father was great courtroom drama.

[Katie Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review also appears on my blog, Read-at-Home Mom.

In the eight books of the Swallows and Amazons series published prior to The Big Six, Arthur Ransome’s wonderful characters have imagined themselves in a whole host of situations. Sometimes they are sailors; at other times, they’re miners, at still other times, they’re explorers. This time around, the Death and Glories (Joe, Bill, and Pete) and Tom Dudgeon as well as Dick and Dorothea, fancy themselves detectives, and they’re not too far off from becoming the real thing. Someone has been casting off boats, and almost everyone believes it is the Death and Glories. They have been in the vicinity of each boat set adrift, and Mr. Tedder, the local policeman is sure he will be able to prove it was them and disband the Coot Club. Dorothea, with her wild imagination, and Dick, with his new interest in photography team up to help their friends prove their innocence and catch the real culprit.

While I will always love the Swallows the most of all of Ransome’s characters, I really grew to love the Death and Glories in this book. In their first appearance, back in Coot Club, the three boys seemed very much like one entity, with very few obvious details to differentiate one from another. In this book, the three boys’ individual personalities are much more pronounced, and I enjoyed seeing the ways they related to one another. I also enjoyed seeing Dick and Dorothea in leadership roles in this story. In all the previous books they have been in, it seems like they have always taken their cues from someone else - namely Nancy, Tom, or Mrs. Barrable. To see them as heroes in this book was a nice change of pace. I also thought it was neat to introduce a mystery element into a sailing story, and I didn’t miss the technical sailing jargon that seems to permeate most of Ransome’s other writing.

I am now just three books away from completing this series, and The Big Six is definitely among my favorites of all the books. At some points, the repetition of the evidence and the lack of action is a bit tedious, but for the most part, the fresh dialogue keeps things moving, and the slow revelations about the different clues help to build suspense so that the reader doesn’t know the outcome of the mystery until the absolute last second. Though the reader can easily guess early on who the true criminal is, it is still entertaining to see the kids solve the mystery and prove their case even when none of the adults around them could manage. Just like all the other Swallows and Amazons books, this one celebrates what kids can do on their own and proves that they should be taken just as seriously as adults.

[Ariel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another glorious trip into the past with Arthur Ransome and his intrepid adventuresome children heroes. This one takes place in Norfolk and our heroes (who come from an interesting mix of classes which is never commented upon and is mainly noticeable in their different turns of speech) are being framed as boat vandals. They play detectives, led by Dorothea (Love that he always includes girls who are strong, smart, capable and independent!) and successfully find the villains. A strong environmentalist bent, including awareness of species extinction, makes the book seem curiously up to date, as the children are all devoted to protecting birds and their nests.

[Emily M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely my least favorite of the series thusfar. One of the most delightful things about Ransome's stories, at least to me as a homeschooling mother, is how understanding the adults are about letting the kids go off and have adventures. I aspire to be like the Best of All Natives or Mrs. Blackett, and Commander Walker is in my top five fictional father figures of all time. So the charm is how much the kids get to do on their own, while staying safely just within reach of parental supervision. I was so frustrated in this book with how every adult except Tom's mother is a punk, blaming the Death-and-Glories for mischief that is so obviously not their fault. We've seen the Swallows, Amazons, and D's wrongfully accused in the past, but it's in passing, and not overwhelmingly oppressive. In this book, it was just incident upon incident of adults accusing the boys of a crime we the readers know they didn't do. We've listened to this whole series on audiobooks (read by the delightful Alison Larkin), and usually, the kids and I are spellbound the whole time, not wanting the book to end. Here, I wished I were just reading it aloud to them so I could skip about 100 pages and get to the end bit.

With that said, there are scenes here to delight. Ransome has such a way of describing the little details of a child's day in a way that captivates his audience. I just loved the scene of the boys helping Pete pull out his tooth, and the chapter where they catch the gigantic pike is just glorious. Things pick up in the book with Dick and Dot show up, and their detecting is cute and fun (though again, having them run into disapproving adults every ten minutes wears on one). After seeing them at a bit of a disadvantage as the newbies in Winter Holiday and Coot Club and just as equals in Pigeon Post, it's delightful to see them shine in a leading role here. The ending is clever and fairly satisfying. The kids loved this one. But I'd much rather reread any of the others before picking this one up again.

[Stephen Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was a child, books by Arthur Ransome were the kind of children's books that adults thought that children ought to read, but which I found rather boring. Our school library was well stocked with them, so I read a few, but if I'd been on Good Reads back then I'd have given them two stars, three at the most.

I can remember little of what I read, and perhaps I read Coot Club, of which this is a kind of sequel, and I suppose my main memory is knowing what the Norfolk Broads were -- the kind of knowledge that comes in useful when watching TV quiz shoes like Pointless, until you've seen them so many times that you stop trying to work out the answers, and rather try to remember which question is going to come up next and which of the very familiar contestants gets the right answer.

I also read Missee Lee, from which I learned that typhus was a serious disease, but when I grew up I found that its cousin typhoid was more common.

Arthur Ransome's books were great for children who liked messing about in boats, but the closest thing we got to that was paying an exorbitant fee for half an hour rowing round the island in Joburg's Zoo Lake, or the slightly less crowded Germiston Lake.

The Big Six has boats, lots of them. But it is also a whodunit, and that adds to the interest. I don't remember reading it as a child. I do remember reading a couple of Enid Blyton's Secret Seven series, where a group of children outwit the criminals that have the local police foxed.

In this one it is not difficult to guess the culprit, but the child detectives are themselves accused of the crime, and so in order to exonerate themselves they have to find the real culprits. The crime is casting off moored boats, and stealing some equipment -- not major crimes worthy of Interpol, but serious enough in a small village where the children's fathers are boatbuilders, and a bad reputation could harm their livelihood.

Though it takes a long time for the children to identify the suspects, that is not the main problem. The main problem is to collect evidence that points unambiguously to the perpetrator, because so much of the evidence they do manage to collect is open to different interpretations. So as a children's whodunit, this one is quite sophisticated. Finding a suspect is one problem, getting enough evidence to convict is another.

In addition to being a whodunit, there is an undercurrent of environmental concern, perhaps of wider concern now than when Ransome wrote it in the 1930s. One is conscious of such concerns throughout the book, that, and the price of things. The idea of a lawyer's fee being 66c makes the mind boggle.

I don't think I read this one as a child, but if I had, I wonder if I would have been able to grasp that point at the age of 9 or 10. But as an adult, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Kate H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome was one of my favorite series. When I decided to re-read it as an adult I was worried that it would not stand the test of time. I was delighted to find that in general found it just as enjoyable now as I did as a child. The characters, writing style and adventures are great and I truly enjoyed the series.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A breathlessly exciting detective story with children in peril, reputations in the balance, and injustice on all sides. One of Ransome's best, with his effortless handling of the detail of life in and around boats, as well as the depiction of a childhood world that impinges on the adult one, and in serious ways, but still manages to keep a separate sense of fun and magic.

[Martyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

(September 2015: 3 stars)
I enjoyed the book, though I can't say I would be in any hurry to read it again. I don't know whether it was spoilt for me or improved by having seen an old TV series which followed the story very closely and captured the characters and the atmosphere very well - knowing what was going to happen took much of the suspense out of reading what was quite a long-winded, slow-moving, and repetitive book. A promising start - it's the first Arthur Ransome book I've read and I wouldn't be averse to reading some more.

(March 2022: 4 stars)
It's six and a half years since I first read The Big Six and I still enjoyed it. Possibly I liked it more this time for reading it in a nicer edition (hardback instead of paperback). Also, I am now more familiar with the two D's, whereas at the time I first read it, it was the first Arthur Ransome book I had ever read and I didn't realise who were or who weren't regular characters in the series. I'm only sorry that I have only one more book in the series left to read, and that that will also be concerned with the same characters, and that I have no fresh adventures of the Swallows and Amazons to look forward to.

But this book is still frustratingly, almost embarrassingly, slow and repetitive, and to some extent one wonders why Ransome was allowed to get away with it, why an editor didn't pull him up on it and abridge it. The number of times the clues and evidence was recounted, sometimes within just a few pages, was painful, and could easily have been cut out, and likewise all the suspicious conversations parents had with their children. It probably would have been far stronger and more exciting as a 350- or 370-page book than as a 400-page one.


(February 2025: 3 stars)
It's nearly three years since I last read The Big Six. This is perhaps one of the slightly more problematic books for me. As always, I like the characters, I like the atmosphere, I like the feel and appearance of the book. But I have grown too familiar with the story from the TV version. And as I commented last time, some of it feels tediously repetitive and bit of editorial refinement wouldn't have gone amiss. It is also frustrating how stupid the adults can be - the men especially as the women tend to be more perceptive. But when everyone previously believed the boys to be such perfectly honest and reliable and trustworthy characters, it's hard to see how everyone could suddenly turn on them so suddenly, so vehemently, and not believe a word that they say. For me that stretched the bounds of credibility. They should have at least have been allowed to have Jim Wooddall on their side. For even the Eelman to believe the allegations against them was painful to behold. If memory serves correctly it feels like Dick and Dorothea were the only characters in the whole book who didn't entertain a doubt or ever have the slightest suspicion that any of the boys might have done the things of which they were accused. Even the Death and Glories and Tom suspected each other at the start, which seemed ridiculous. The owner of the Cachalot and the pike episode was the one (and only) really bright spot in whole book, a refreshing - and much needed - break from all the misery and suspicion and speculation and hurt and frustration. I guess the thing to be thankful for is that, when reading the books in chronological order, this book falls somewhere in the middle, so that there are better and brighter things to look forward to.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love how each Swallows and Amazons book has a different theme and focuses on different skill sets in pursuit of that theme. The series, taken as a whole, is like an American Boys’ (Girls’) Handy Book in story form. So far in the series we’ve had camping, sailing, signaling, navigating, mapmaking, mining, birding, carrier pigeons - and I’m sure a few other things I’m forgetting. In this book it was sleuthing and photography. This was one of the more suspenseful books (yet also maddening) as the Six were falsely accused of casting off boats and stealing, and had to work to prove their innocence or be taken off the river for the rest of the summer.

I removed a star from my typical 5 stars for this series because
1. The ORIGINAL six do not make an appearance
2. It was so frustrating that everyone in town, including their own families, thought they were guilty

[Nicholas George · Rating 3 out of 5]

For this one I really had to place myself into mindset of the intended audience... teenage boys in early 1940s England. Believe me, that wasn't easy. On one level this is sort of a British Hardy Boys, but instead of two brothers there are six young people (including a precocious girl) who somehow live on a barge in the Norfolk Broads. (There were several books preceding this which no doubt would have explained much that was left out of this one.) This band of kids, known as the Coots aboard their boat, Death and Glory, face a nemesis accusing them of sabotaging other boats on the river and engaging in thefts. It's quite complex for a YA book but I admit I was fascinated by it.

[Lizzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good! Poor dot missed out as she's 'a girl' at one point, also unfortunate reference to negro's on page 346, but it was not meant badly, it is an old story after all. Very much liked the illustrations, and the descriptions of the eel trapping. Liked all the descriptions about cooking and the jobs they did, and the plot was very well done too! A keeper.

[Mumbler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second half is much freer from the flaws. There is one quick but nasty other problem--a child describes a photographic negative, of a face, with the N-word. Other than that -

It was wonderful.

Read it during the run of 'The Borrowers'!

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

A frustrating story. Not AR's best.

[Claire Haeg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favourite, but at least it's not Peter Duck.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re -read as audiobook.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

The kid enjoyed this one more than me.. mysteries are just never my favorite, but love the writing and England and the kids. Sigh.

[Helen Turnock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Children’s detective fiction is such a good genre of novel

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm rereading the whole "Swallows and Amazons" series, loving it all, although I find myself occasionally badly startled by Ransome's language of race and gender, and by attitudes that seem inharmonious and cruel, especially in books that are at the same time full of kindness and and a robust code of fair play.

The sad fact is that although a progressive and enlightened man---extraordinarily so by the standards of the day--- Ransome was still an Englishman of his time and place: the glories of Empire had not yet faded from his cultural consciousness, and nor had the abuses. Either you factor this in, or, if you find the language too upsetting, you simply put these books on an "Index" and find something else to read.

This adventure has some added historical fascination in that several of the characters speak in the dialect of the Norfolk Broads, which was then, in the interwar period, still isolated and distinctive. That was before the radio and television era tended to blur regional accents and dialects into something more homogeneous.

In several of the books, Ransome touches on something that most children can relate to: the awful experience of being wrongly suspected or accused. This particular book is framed by that experience, and follows a resourceful group of young friends as they unravel the clues in pursuit of justice.

In all the books, he appeals to a sense of adventure and independence as well as fair play: this one is no exception.

He also understands one of the royal roads to creating a children's classic: make sure there's plenty of delicious food. In The Big Six, to be sure, there's a disastrous experiment with smoked eel, but otherwise the young protagonists enjoy round after round of glorious "grub."

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

My son and I are making our way through these and I think this is my least favorite so far. It's not terrible but I didn't enjoy it as much as some of the others.

This one is a revisit to the Norfolk Broad world of Coot Club and includes the D's, but none of the actual Swallows or Amazons who are missed. Taking on the story of Coot Club, where one of the children did cast a boat adrift in order to save a nesting bird, this time the children are framed by a mysterious adversary and have to develop their own detective abilities to prove their innocence.

A couple of things that I think made this less good than the others. There is a lot of interaction with adults on the broads, none of whom believe in the children's innocence, rather than the children just getting on with their own adventures. Also, the big reveal of the people that are framing them is not particularly surprising, and takes what feels like a long time to get there.

There is a particularly good bit at the start when two of the children catch a large pike who is then stuffed as an attraction at the local pub. There is also a very unfortunate racist bit near the end when an important photograph that can clear the children is developed and the people appearing in it are described as looking like the 'n' word.

Overall, it was still OK, but not as fun or memorable as some of the others in the same series.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Big Six follows Coot Club. When I last left the members of the Coot Club all was well. After an adventure tangling with holiday boaters the members were all hailed as heroes, so to speak, after performing what was seen as an environmental good deed. And in the end helping the very people who had created the problem.
In The Big Six Bill, Pete and Joe who own the Death and Glory (and starting their own boat salvage company) are falsely accused of deliberately setting boats adrift. It doesn’t take much to set everyone against them since the evidence is always right there where they are. The good deed Tom had done in The Big Six is now the reason everyone is more than willing to believe they, as his friends and club fellows, must have done this.
Dick and Dorothea are back and a new Scotland Yard is formed to investigate and prove their innocence.
This is a very good lesson in how quickly public opinion can be turned and how most people are willing to believe only what they hear without checking the facts.
Of course alls well that ends well but it’s a spirited journey to catch the real perpetrator.

[Dave Appleby · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Swallows and Amazons series returns to the Norfolk Broads for the sequel to Coot Club. There is an outbreak of setting boats adrift at night and this seems to happen wherever the Death & Glory boys (Joe, Bill and Pete, easily the most working-class of all Ransome's heroes) are. Tom, the local doctor's son and the Ds (science minded Dick and story-writing Dorothea, to whom we were introduced in Winter Holiday) help the pirates to clear their name. Alibis and assistance are provided by when the lads fish for eels and for pike. As a detective story it is childishly easy to identify the real culprit but as always the real excitement comes from the sailing, the fishing and, of course, the thrill of living in your own boat. And the characterisations are superb.

Another old-fashioned story with a slow build-up but the characters and the pitch-perfect observations and the gentle humour make it a page-turned from the start.

[Andrew Bishop · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the worst of the Swallows and Amazon books, it's obvious who the perpetrator is right from the first few chapters. The list of incidents is repeated and described in detail to different characters over and over and over and over and over again, and over again. It becomes really boring, letting you turn pages and pages at a time to get past yet another description. The way the perpetrator is caught is also very obvious and as soon as the use of a camera at night is mentioned early on you know how it's going to end.

I read this when I was about 10 and I even then I remember it being a bit boring. Re reading it was a bit painful.

All the other Swallow and Amazon books are great, this is the one that lets the series down.

[Cricket Muse · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an entry in Ransome’s classic Swallows and Amazons series this story contains the same amount of camaraderie and adventure as the previous books.

It’s holiday time and the group known as Coot Club have fixed up their boat and plan to enjoy their days sailing and fishing. One snag develops to interrupt their fun: they are falsely accused of setting other boats adrift.

While the first half of the book centers on the ache of the boys suffering false accusations and getting the cold shoulder from people the second half brightens up when Dorothea and Dick arrive and decide to become “Scotland Yard” and set out to investigate in order to clear everyone’s name.

Mixed into the story is an exciting fishing expedition involving a giant pike that adds to the satisfying denouement.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't remember much of this story about the Norfolk Broadsfrom childhood reading, and I now think I found it quite uncomfortable to read at the time and perhaps didn't revisit it as much as some of the others. How easy it was to set the boys up as hooligans and thieves is one thing, but the way all the adults turn on them is really sinister, close to a witch hunt. "Don't be an outsider" Tom pleads with his father, who also believes in their guilt. It all works out in the end, of course, and this is a good place to read about how photography worked at the time, too - took me back to the days of twiddling something and waiting for shapes to appear!

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really "Coot Club" part 2, however with the emphasis on the "Death and Glory" boys (Joe, Bill and Pete) rather than Tom. Dot and Dick play crucial roles in this adventure which is more like a mystery novel. Consequently there are less "sailing instructions" and more detection and intrigue! In fact, they set up a "Scotland Yard" bureau in the Coot Club shack.

Another greatly enjoyable Arthur Ransome book with plenty of local Norfolk flavor. I highly recommend all of the "non-fantasy" books in the series. Even without the Swallow and Amazon crews, the two "D's" make it great fun.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although The Big Six drags in the middle, and is quite grim in its portrayal of village society all-too-ready to suspect our heroes of crimes they didn’t commit (how dumb can some of those adults be!?), it does contain some of Ransome’s wittiest moments and a very tense and exciting finale as the (rather obvious, but never mind) whodunnit unravels. The pike fishing subplot is also great, as is Dorothea as the director-writer of ‘Scotland Yard’, the way that the Coots manage to prove their innocence.

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great boating tale from Arthur Ransome. I prefer the stories with the Swallows and Amazon's generally, however, the whodunnit' of this tale, and the unlikely gang of Coots and Ds really worked, in my opinion!
My only issue with the story was the 'Dorothea isn't allowed because she is a girl' line. Which is so jarring considering the ferociousness of the Amazons, it just felt out of place here, despite the function it served in the story. Other than that, I really enjoyed this one.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great “yarn” by a talented author! Arthur Ransome created a beautiful mystery about a group of 6 friends and detectives who have to find who has been sending boats adrift to save themselves from being blamed for it. They utilize “Scotland Yard” and gather all kinds of evidence to present to a family friend solicitor! Very heart warming and clever story. No Swallows or Amazons in this one, but lots of action and excitement for the Big Six!😎