Book Review: Beyond the Door
Simon Lucas wrote Beyond the Door between 1993 and 1997. Had I read it in 1998, when it was first published, I would have been in the target market. Thanks to an e-book re-release, I have had the chance to catch up on what I missed out on in my younger days. Beyond the Door is a fast-paced tale of a group of children who discover that a smuggling gang is operating in their beloved village, and then set about bringing the gang to justice despite several dangers and close shaves!
If you had to categorise Beyond the Door for a bookshelf, it would sit very comfortably beside the works of Enid Blyton as a children’s’ adventure story set in the country, where a group of kids discover something amiss and strive to put it right. But although a comparison with Blyton is natural, Beyond the Door is not simply a Famous Five rip-off set in a familiar location. Instead, the setting itself is instrumental to the whole story and the author’s obvious fondness for the Suffolk coast helps to sustain an upbeat tone throughout the book.
The East Anglian coastline is not an area of the country which I know well, but Lucas brings it to life. Right from the opening scene at a rural railway station, the idyllic village of Tendringham is brought to life with rich description and inventive smilies. At one point, for example, the pink warehouses interrupt the beautiful countryside “like a row of ugly, dirty thumbs”. The apparent quietness of the village is skillfully contrasted with the (literally) underground smuggling ring operating on a huge scale within it. Part of the intrigue and the adventure exists precisely because even the most innocuous of places could have hidden secrets. When the characters discover a hidden tunnel network, they have an almost entrepreneurial desire to find out what secrets they contain. They are unperturbed by an explosion, imprisonment, and the threat of murder; their bravery is driven as much by a love for the village as their sense of adventure, and the story is richer because of it.
As a by-product of the East Anglian location, Beyond the Door features generous passages about sailing. Having never sailed, these sections were at times a touch too descriptive for me, using terminology I am not familiar with. But sailing is important to the area, and there was much I was able to connect with. The children’s efforts to raise money for the RNLI was touching, and help to portray the children as community-builders rather than simply adventure-seekers.
The characters themselves are all likeable in their own ways. The story primarily involves two pairs of siblings; Stephen and Ian, and Paul and Jennie. Paul and Jennie know Tendringham well while Stephen and Ian do not, so the brothers often ask Jennie and Paul for information at exactly the moment the reader wants to! Although the characters are set up well, I was slightly disappointed that they did not seem to develop much through the course of the story. Ian is the most sensible (boring) of the friends, and is the most reluctant to investigate the smuggling gang. He is the only character to show real development, though – when the others have been locked in a cell in the tunnel network, he decides to go, alone, into the tunnels to find them.
I really enjoyed the appearances of the adult characters, although they were often brief. On several occasions, we had to take Paul or Jennie’s word that a character was apparently respectable because we did not have the chance to see them much for ourselves. I would have liked to have seen more of James, the village shopkeeper, before finding out his sinister involvement in the smuggling. At times, reading Beyond the Door was a little like watching CSI: Miami – an important piece of information or a crucial character would be introduced just as they became necessary to the story. It was great to read such a fast-paced story, therefore, but it was often difficult to know what was a vital clue to the storyline and what was purely incidental.
These are minor niggles, though, which I suspect are the result of having to describe a whole village and keep the narrative moving at the same time. Having established the characters, I think a follow-up story could be less descriptive and even quicker-paced. The main characters work well together, and I would like to see more from them. The children’s strong values really suit the portrayal of Tendringham, and there is surely scope for more stories in the village. For a sequel, perhaps someone could steal the lifeboat? Or maybe the children could discover a plot to exacerbate coastal erosion for financial gain? As for Beyond the Door, I would have no hesitation in recommending it as an exciting adventure story for children; and I enjoyed it on merit, despite not quite fitting the intended age bracket!
Beyond the Door is available as an e-book on Amazon’s Kindle and a wide variety of other formats.
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