Review – Cracked by Michele Martin Bossley
Bobsleds, Sabotage, & Counterfeiting at Canada Olympic Park
Oct 21, 2009
What is "cracked" is a bobsleigh runner that comes off during a practice run at Calgary's Canada Olympic Park.
Calgarian author Michele Martin Bossley quite properly chose her own home town as the setting (though oddly, the city is never named in the book). Canada Olympic Park was constructed for the 1988 Winter Olympics and has remained as a world-class training center, making the events of the book quite feasible.
Plot Summary of Cracked by Michele Martin Bossley
Trevor, his cousin Nick, and their friend Robyn, along with Robyn's locker partner Courtney Ganz, are at Canada Olympic Park on a school trip. Courtney's brother Josh is an Olympic-caliber bobsledder, and the four youths stand at the Kreisel, a turn just past midway on the bobsled track, to watch his training run.
The run ends in a pile of screeching metal. It turns out that Josh had lent his sled to rival James Ramsey, and when the loosened runner turns out to be sabotage, Josh is accused.
Courtney pleads with her friends to help her brother. Trevor, Nick, and Robyn go sneaking around Canada Olympic Park to determine the truth.
There are so many clues. Mysterious coded notes, foreign-sounding workmen, muddy footprints, icepicks planted as threats or warnings, a counterfeit $50 bill. What is the significance of the orange bananas?
There is also Josh himself, who is acting oddly and who repeatedly warns the trio to stay out of his affairs. Clearly he is involved in some plot or other. Did he sabotage his own sled? What is he hiding?
The three would-be sleuths dig deeper into the mystery. But just as things begin to clear, they find themselves caught in a corner with nowhere to run.
Further Comments About Cracked by Michele Martin Bossley
Because of its bobsleigh focus, this book might almost have made the Orca Sports series. However, the central characters are not involved in the sport themselves. The bobsledding serves as background, the Olympic Park a convenient setting.
The protagonists display an unrealistic self-confidence and élan reminiscent of the old Hardy Boys books. The situations are reminiscent of those books as well: doors are conveniently unlocked, areas are coveniently unsupervised, buildings are conveniently empty, crooks are relatively non-threatening. None of these things are flaws, really, but are characteristic of the genre.
About Orca Currents
"Orca Currents," according to the publisher, "are short high-interest novels with contemporary themes, written expressly for middle-school students reading below grade level."
- Interest level : ages 10-14
- Reading levels from grade 2.0 to grade 4.5
Bossley, Michele Martin, Cracked. Victoria, BC: Orca Book Publishers, 2007. pp 106. ISBN 978-55143-702-6
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