Customer Reviews

Panic

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When Allison's uncle, a respected and important member of society, dies, she is surprised and saddened. When a man named Colonel Armstrong arrives moments after his death and warns Allison that she is in danger, she is shocked. As her uncle's private secretary, she alone holds the key to the unbreakable cipher that he was working on before his death. He promised the key to the Colonel but left nothing behind but an encoded message. The Colonel demands the key, something that Allison cannot provide.

To get away from the stress of the situation and to get rid of a pesky cold, Allison goes to Altonrea, a summer cottage in the mountains. She had spent summers there with her uncle, and although she will be alone and the cottage has no electricity, she welcomes the thought of solitude. She brings her blind cocker spaniel along for company, and finds it to be a quiet place to relax-- at first. At night, noises abound, and fear begins to creep up on her, especially when she finds evidence of her uncle's own paranoia, and that of the previous owner of the cottage.

The sounds she hears outside alternate between those of a human and those of a beast. She wonders about Pan, the god of the animals whose name served as inspiration for the word "panic." To add to her anxiety, Allison begins work on decoding her uncle's deathbed message and the cipher he called unbreakable.

Another entertaining story from Helen McCloy, Panic introduces a group of memorable characters and vivid settings which makes for a story that is easy to follow and which remains engaging throughout. The major flaw of this work is inclusion of long explanations of different ciphers throughout history. We don't so much care how Allison's uncle's code is broken, so long as it is. However, the climax is solid and makes for some fast page-turning to get to the conclusion.