Martha Attema takes pains not to bore: her fast-paced mystery, set in an island community off The Netherlands’ north shore, features a body, three ominous strangers, a ghost sighting, a rowdy festival and costume ball, and a storm that sweeps away the dunes. She adds the puzzle of why 14-year-old Rikst has been named for a legendary witch who lures ships to disaster; links this to a painful family secret; then stirs in a boy-girl thing with Dirk, the class heart-throb, and a girl-girl thing with Marijke, Rikst’s best friend. There’s also the big story contest in which the whole school takes part. All this requires eight major characters as well as the evil Ice-woman, her accomplices, and a host of supporting players. As a result, Rikst’s greatest struggle – and the reader’s – is not so much with the life-threatening bad guys as with the rush of events that makes it near-impossible to think or feel about what any of it means. While this may suit readers trained on Goosebumps to expect a thrill a minute, it doesn’t make for memorable fiction. Orca too could have taken more time to catch minor but irritating typos.

Attema’s first book, A Time to Choose, won the Blue Heron award; this, her second, also sets a story of high adventure within the context of loyalty to family and friends. The headlong pace holds us to the end, even though a number of things don’t ring true – such as the offhand response of Rikst’s family and the community towards the body on the beach, or the way trusted Thomas so foolishly draws the young people into peril. These problems aside, Rikst’s fear-heightened narration and the handy map provide us with a vivid picture of life in a country both familiar and excitingly unlike our own.