The Merry Muldoons and the Brighteyes Affair

Grade 5-8-- In the spring of 1893, young Sam, his sister Vera, and their hard-drinking father are a lackluster vaudeville act in a dime museum on the Bowery. When a murderous thug nicknamed ``Brighteyes'' forces Pa to help retrieve stolen diamonds, life goes awry for the threesome and Vera ends up with the glittering trove. She convinces Pa that they can set up their own theater with the goods, and the family exits Manhattan to escape Brighteyes. An adventurous chase ensues over rural New York State. There are captures, escapes, and plot twists galore. Bad guys turn into good guys and vice versa. In less skilled hands, this could have turned into comic-book farce, but McNamara's characterizations and strong voice make the improbable seem quite reasonable and certainly entertaining. Although there is no touch of the supernatural, this book is somewhat reminiscent of Richard Peck's The Ghost Belonged to Me (Viking, 1975), with its viewpoint expressed through an intelligent, conservative, yet typical boy led unwillingly into danger by an assertive girl. Like Peck, McNamara splashes in historical detail and humor in an unobtrusive way, making it easy for reluctant readers to enter the time period. Light adventure at its best!-- Cindy Darling Codell, Clark Middle School, Winchester, KY
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A less than stellar vaudeville act, the family Muldoon--"fifteen minutes of the worst hokum anybody ever foisted on an unsuspecting public"--finds itself in the midst of a Keystone Kops-style caper revolving around a casket full of diamonds. Narrated by Sam, the sensible son, at the request of his madcap sister Vera, the story shows McNamara's affectionate knowledge of its setting--New York City's Bowery circa 1893. A theater historian, he dishes up cliffhanger after hyperbolic cliffhanger, but his story ends up moving too quickly--and includes too much flaccid characterization--for readers to savor his command of the era. Sam and Vera seem to hover indecisively between verisimilitude and the comic excesses of Lloyd Alexander's Vesper Holly, Sid Fleischmann's classic rapscallions, or the loony fugitives of Rex Benedict. Ages 10-up.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.