The third entry in Antonia Forest's rather eclectic series of children's novels devoted to the fortunes of the Marlow family - a collection which includes both traditional school stories and holiday adventures - Falconer's Lure chronicles the events of one fateful summer. Visiting their father's Cousin Jon at Trennels Old Farm - the home of the Marlows for close to ten centuries - the family are unprepared when tragedy strikes, and spend most of the holiday attempting, in their various ways, to reconcile themselves to their loss, and adjust to the change in lifestyle that it brings with it.

Of course, there's a lot of exciting, well-written adventure here too, focusing mostly on Nicola's growing friendship with neighbor Patrick Merrick, and involvement in the sport of falconry. Peter's interest in photography, and continued fear of heights, Lawrie's determination to pursue a career on the stage, and Rowan's decision to leave school, in order to help the family, are also explored, and an end-of-summer festival, regatta and gymkhana round out the narrative developments.

Occurring shortly after the events of The Marlows and the Traitor, which detailed the preceding Easter-time adventures of the four youngest Marlows, Falconer's Lure was an engaging and well-written story, although it failed to enthrall me to the same degree as its predecessor. This may have been owing to the rather splintered narrative focus, or perhaps, to the possibility that espionage makes for better reading than birding. Still, Forest's talent for complex characterization, and sensitive appreciation of young people's inner lives, shines through. Ginty's continued struggle to come to terms with her traumatic Easter-time experiences, Peter's not always wise approach to dealing with his phobia, the younger Marlows' sometime insensitivity to Ann, are all well observed. Though it probably won't rank among my favorite Marlow books, it was still a great pleasure to read!

Note: readers should be aware that, like The Marlows and the Traitor, there is a single use of the word "n*gger" here, something I find rather astonishing, given the late publication date (1957) of the book. I'm wondering when this word stopped being acceptable in Britain...? ( )

Somehow not as entertaining as the first couple of Marlow books. Falcon stuff was all a bit tedious and the plot wandered off somewhere else that wasn't as interesting as the falcon stuff anyway.

http://www.lonelymountain.net/books/apr06.html#forestm ( )