From Publishers Weekly
From Robin Jarvis comes The Crystal Prison, the second book in the Deptford Mice Trilogy that began with The Dark Portal (see Fiction Reprints below). Finally, the evil rat Jupiter is dead. But with the sewers still infested with his minions, the mice flee the city for the country. However, a rash of murders blights the once idyllic setting, forcing the mice to confront the accusing townspeople and the evil lurking in their midst.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an alternate
Hardcover
edition.
From School Library Journal
Gr 5-8-In this sequel to The Dark Portal (SeaStar, 2000), a young mouse named Oswald falls ill, and the powerful squirrel Starwife decrees that he can only be healed if his friend Audrey accompanies a formerly evil but now pitiful rat named Madame Akkikuyu to the countryside. In the country, a bucolic existence is threatened by an evil spirit who uses Akkikuyu to gain power and wreak havoc on the mice who live there. Although this book stands on its own, readers who aren't familiar with the first volume might become impatient with the first section, which introduces a multitude of characters and moves slowly, impeded by old-fashioned, florid prose. The pace picks up in the countryside, where an ever-hungry owl and the mysterious spirit bring menace and tragedy to the close-knit community of field mice who live there, and the final chapters are breathtakingly thrilling. Some literal-minded readers may wonder how a mouse could stride or possess a waist and long flowing hair, but fans of Brian Jacques's "Redwall" series (Philomel) and Avi's "Tales from Dimwood Forest" series (HarperCollins) will likely relish this tale.
Eva Mitnick, Los Angeles Public Library
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an alternate
Hardcover
edition.