The Riddle of the Sands

by Peter Hawkins (Retold by), Erskine Childers

One of the first great spy novels, THE RIDDLE OF THE SANDS is set during the long suspicious years leading up to the First World War. Bored with his life in London, a young man accepts an invitation to join a friend on a sailing holiday in the Baltic. The story builds in excitement as these two young adventurers discover a German plot to invade England.

112 pages, Paperback

Published April 14, 2008

Reviews

[Emily Saaen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the language; quiet, wavering tension; descriptions of inner workings of waters and ships; broad sketches of some characters and detailed paintings of others.

Didn't like somewhat tangled and pointless "mystery" - was there a mystery at all?

Written now, in current literary tradition, this book would have been but a short novella, around 5th of its original length. I can recomment it to lovers of lush, deliberate prose, involved descriptions, and "personal travel diary" style - but not to the lovers of whodunits and action.

It's a very unusual piece of prose. Not life-changing, definitely, but I would love to read more of that kind - suits my slow and quiet approach to life (:

[Max Kramer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Das heimtückische Albion

[Kosuke Kamiya · Rating 5 out of 5]

1. Oxford level 5

2. 8/2=60min, 8/3=60min, 8/4=60min, 8/5=60min

3. vacation, voyage, sea, navy, crisis, Germany, England

4 a. The characters treated their ship as like women. When they describe the ship, they always start “ she ….”.

4 b. I was very astonished about that. I knew that living things such as animals and plants are called she or he. However, I didn’t know that beloved things such as doll and ship also called he or she. This value is similar to Japanese mind.

5. I haven’t read mystery books very much since ever, but this book made me interested in kind of that. I enjoyed reading this book. There are a lot of words related with ship and sea and so it was a little tough for me to read smoothly. However, The content let me read enjoyable. I want to try to read other mystery books.

[Mike MacDonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh dear, so many details about sailing are gone over in such "depth" that the plot is completely gone. Many parts are interesting, but the only reason I finished the book was so I wouldn't have to come back to it someday.
Perhaps if you are maritime born and bred, there is something to grasp here, but if not, you may be praying for the ending.

[amr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this a while back in middle school but its a pretty nice thrilling mysterious spy mystery with simplistic vocabulary and is also one hell of a romance even tho the romantic relationship wasn’t rly given any attention instead just put there to add a little spice and justify some of the character’s actions

[Namiko · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm usually having trouble reading descriptions about ships, sea, and geography and so forth. However, I found it easy to read this version of the story. They have glossary and three maps. The story itself is interesting and the two main characters are neat too.

[Halla Khader · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the book but the ending was boring