Secret of Abbott’s Cave (Tweener Press Adventure Series)

Max Elliot Anderson
Baker Trittin Press (2004)
ISBN 0975288008
Reviewed by Garrett Fowler (age 10) for Reader Views (4/07 )


The Hilton Park Detective club decided to spend $ 178 on a police scanner and attend a caving class at the local park. 

Randy, Stewart, Hal and Jeff were all in the same Sunday school class at church where they learned a lesson about a blind beggar that teaches them how to know about what’s going on around the world when one of there senses aren’t working. This will help them in the future where they are in a cave.  At school the boys have to do a report on caves and decide to go camping and explore a cave to understand them better.  When they get inside the cave they find some money hidden by bank robbers and that is when the danger begins.

The author uses vivid words that make things very imaginable for the reader.  It is a really good story.  I liked this part because it sets up the two main parts of the story. It is when the boys here about the robbery on the police scanner.

            “Dispatcher here.  Adam 52, Adam 53.   10-93, alarm at Dominion State Bank.”

            “Adam 52. 10-4”

            “Adam 53. 10-4”

            “Dispatcher to Sam 20, did you copy the traffic on the alarm?”

            “Sam 20. 10-4, I’m 10-35 now.”

This is a really good, terrific book.  I would recommend “Secret of Abbott’s Cave” to anyone who likes a good story and a good mystery.


Reviewed by Alex Gonzalez (age 14) for Reader Views (4/06):

In “Secret of Abbott’s Cave,” Randy Wilcox (the main character) and his friends (Stewart Adkins, Jeff Stevens, and Hal Conti) form a club called the Hilton Park Road Detective Club. They decide to get a police scanner radio so that when crime happens, they can be at the crime scene. When they go to Sunday school one day, they get a new teacher and have a lesson that will affect their future adventures. The teacher talks about how Jesus made a blind man see, and they did an activity where the Sunday school class was in total darkness and some of them had to go through a blind “obstacle course”.

Randy and his friends like cave exploring although they haven’t explored any caves yet. They take a class on safety and what to bring in caves. Later on, Randy and his friends go to explore a cave on Jeff Steven’s uncle’s property. When they get picked up they hear the police scanner talking about a bank robbery and two suspects that were on the run. When the friends reach their destination, the set up camp near the cave and in the morning, they see the two bank robbers go towards the direction of the cave. In the morning the friends go in the cave and find the money and later the robbers come and follow the kids deep in the seemingly endless cave. Through great leadership and trust, Randy and his friends make it out the cave safely and end up getting the robbers arrested. Randy and his friends come out as town heroes.

The author really made this book easy on the eyes because it didn’t have many “big” words. Also, the author wrote in such a way that I could picture exactly what was going on, such as when Stewart was looking down into a hole in the cave and dropped his helmet. I could hear the flashlight coming apart from the helmet and breaking into the wall.

I like this book because it was easy to read, yet it had me sitting on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen to the kids in the next sentence! This book is great if you want a quick read and like adventure books. Also, this book is intended for the younger ages, but in my opinion anyone of any age could enjoy this delightful book. And it comes with an extra feature at the end, a list of Hampton, Virginia’s 10-codes and fire signals! I recommend that anyone who is at least a little interested should buy this book.

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