Three orphans quest for buried treasure in this well-crafted quick-to-read story which is sad and heartwarming in turns.

This book feels like a cross between Jaqueline Wilson and Enid Blyton. There is a big dollop of ‘realistic kids misery lit’ like not being able to afford rent and vet’s bills, entwined with ‘we have a photograph of a place where Treasure is buried, can we find it?’

I bought it because I was going to Orkney on holiday. There’s only a short chunk at the end where they are on Orkney, but I thought it did capture the island well, although more from the perspective of ‘what is it like to be a tourist’ which I did kind of know already. It was fun to recognise all the places though!

I guess it is hard to write a book where children have adventures and have the main adults in the children’s lives be likeable and competent, but they really did draw the short straw with their family! A literally paranoid Aunt who causes most of the plot by hiding all the money in the first place (and who has done a staunch ‘no, I don’t help people with money, people must help themselves’ when her nephews and niece are orphaned, despite being A Fabulously Wealthy Inventor), her husband who literally steals the heroes’ inheritance, and their daughter, who is so wrapped up with raising her own perfect children at private school she turns a complete blind eye to their cousins. It felt realistic though, everyone wrapped up in their own problems and scared to start helping in case it was a bottomless hole.

The book is trying quite hard to be modern and realistic, and broadly manages it well. There were a few things that didn’t feel like they would quite work (the problem of getting back from Mainland Orkney to Aberdeen is pretty much elided with ‘a farmer has a boat on Papa Westray’ and they manage to book a car on the ferry to Orkney with less than a day’s notice in Summer with limited budget!) but nothing too outrageous.

It is doing the ‘use books for children to recommend other famous books to children’ thing, there is a liberal scattering of references to books I like, including Dorothy L Sayers, the Family at One End Street, and the title is a Donne reference. It is from the time when we all thought Potter was great too.

An enjoyable read with a very likeable plucky first person narrator. ( )