Odin's Eye

by Marguerite Murray

Fifteen-year-old Cicely's summer job at a seaside boarding house owned by a family friend turns into a dangerous adventure as she stumbles across clues to a long unsolved murder and possible espionage.

170 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1987

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Odin's Eye turns out to be an old house on the New England shore, named after the protagonist's angry great-grandfather. This story has nothing whatsoever to do with Norse mythology. It is about a girl named Cicely, whose mother thinks she is too much of a bookworm and will never find a boyfriend, and sends her to spend the summer doing domestic work at her cousin Millicent's boarding house. Unexpectedly staying at the boarding house is Lummie, once Millicent's fiance but not seen for years, now a complete jerk. With him is Olive Plumtree, who went to high school with Cicely's mother but, again, has not been heard of since. What is this unpleasant pair up to, and why are they so interested in the activities of the Coast Guard? Cicely and her new friend Geoff are determined to find out. Their first step is to find the telescope through which Odin once spied on the coast, missing since the night of a never-solved murder...

Books Cicely reads:
Kristin Lavransdatter
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
Hamlet
Three Men in a Boat (which by coincidence I am also reading!)

I like when characters talk about books and was disappointed when this aspect dropped out to make room for detecting, although that was fun, too. This book certainly has flaws, one of them being a noticeable unevenness of tone and pacing, but I still quite enjoyed it.