by Charlie Archbold
Publisher: Text Publishing, 2024
Publisher’s blurb
When you least expect it something surprising will spring out and shock you. Like when you study your dead bug shelf and there’s a live huntsman spider sitting on it. Or when your sausage dog turns up on a secret mission…‘It’s Gloria,’ I say. You can feel the shock hover over the fort like a sulphur gas cloud over a volcano.
Gloria the talkative eclectus parrot is missing from the animal sanctuary, and Anna the massive ‘not an anaconda’ Australian scrub python has vanished from her enclosure at the library. Have they escaped? Or were they stolen?
When Andy and the Sugarcane Kids hear about an illegal native-animal trade, they know they have to investigate—and fast! Gloria and Anna are not only much-loved residents of their small coastal town in far north Queensland, but they also have very particular care needs—their lives could be in danger!
Andy, Eli, Harvey and the twins, Bernie and Fletch, along with Andy’s trusty sausage dog Washington, have their eyes on a prime suspect: the Hench, the fierce, mean new canteen lady who is behaving very strangely. Can the Sugarcane Kids follow the clues to discover what is going on? Will they find Gloria and Anna in time? And what unexpected dangers lie in wait for them? Find out in this exciting new Sugarcane Kids adventure.
Review
by Liz Filleul
Last year, Charlie Archbold’s entertaining middle-grade mystery, The Sugarcane Kids and the Red-Bottomed Boat, won the Davitt Award for Best Children’s Novel. The Sugarcane Kids and the Empty Cage is the second book in the series.
And, like its predecessor, it’s a lot of fun. This time the crime-busting crew of Andy, Eli, Harvey, Fletch and Bernie are on the trail of wildlife thieves after various exotic pets – including a parrot belonging to a family friend of Eli’s, and a python from the library – go missing.
The Sugarcane Kids are convinced the obnoxious new canteen manager, ‘The Hench’, is involved with the thefts, and they’re also suspicious of two other strangers in town, two giggling women dressed identically in green, whom the Sugarcane Kids nickname the ‘Snowpea twins’. But the Sugarcane Kids will need to outwit strict parents and even a scary crocodile as well as the wildlife thieves if they’re going to rescue Gloria the parrot and the other stolen wildlife.
What I like about these books is that they combine compelling mystery, adventure and suspense with an underlying message about the importance of friendship and of doing the right thing. In some ways, these books about resourceful children outsmarting adult criminals – and the police! – remind me of Enid Blyton. But Archbold’s books feature a diverse group of children and are set in the exotic location of Far North Queensland, and so are much more relatable for young Aussie crime readers. There’s plenty of humour too, especially in the Sugarcane Kids’ cunning decoy plans.
These books will appeal to readers aged between eight and 12, so if you have a young relative or friend you’d like to introduce to Aussie crime fiction, look no further than the Sugarcane Kids. Fast-paced and funny, they’re a great read for the young-at-heart too.