Revolver

by Marcus Sedgwick

Genre: Historical fiction
Age group: 11+

Sig was a normal boy in Alaska... that is, until his father, Einar, drove across the frozen lake outside their house and froze to death. And to make things even more unusual, a man called Wolff came to Sig's house looking for Einar's gold... Einar's gold that Sig knows nothing about. But even though Wolff knows that Sig has no clue where this gold is, he is determined to stay until Sig's stepmother and sister return home from a trip, and maybe even past then. Wolff is dangerous, and there's nothing Sig can do about him. Except... there's a revolver in the pantry. If Sig could get that gun, he could win. He could get rid of Wolff. Can he—or will he—do it? Or will his memories of his dead pacifist mother get the better of him?

This book skipped back and forth between the present (actually the early 1900s in Alaska) and the past (before the early 1900s in Europe). The present is told from Sig's point of view and the past from his father's. Admittedly, getting both of these points of view gives you a lot of information that you otherwise wouldn't get and need to know in order to understand the story. However, it's slightly confusing the way it switches. I was reading and suddenly it switched from present to past. I was really confused and had to go back and start over, using a higher level of concentration than usual. However, I got used to it after maybe 50 pages, and then the story started to get more interesting. It's a little sparse, and Marcus Sedgwick does not waste words on beautiful description, but that works in this case because Alaska is also sparse. Not all stories are cut out for vivid imagery. This is not one of my favorite books and I did not love it, but it wasn't bad. It's an interesting type of mystery/historical fiction that makes you wonder who really is the bad guy.