'Tom has spent most of his life locked behind the cruel walls of Weatherly Orphanage, but when he learns that his parents might be still alive, Tom knows he must do what he can to find them. He can't leave Weatherly without his best friend Sarah, so armed with a single clue to his past, BRITFIELD, the two make a daring escape.'
The description for Britfield & The Lost Crown, along with the dramatic front cover, made it feel like this was going to be an exciting and vast adventure, filled with intrigue and danger. The book started that way, with the daring escape from Weatherly Orphanage being one of the best parts of the book, but once this part of the book was out of the way it did begin to slow down a little.
The lead character, Tom, has grown up in different orphanages his whole life, and only has vague memories of his life before and his parents. He's grown up in one abuse home after another, being treated like a prisoner, he and his fellow orphans used as free labour in sweatshop conditions. He's had to grow up fast, and has missed out on a lot of the things that most children get to have.
When he's suspected of being behind the theft of a book from the evil orphanage owners home (something that he admittedly did do), he's told that he has two days to give them information on every breaking of the rules that has ever happened. He's asked to betray every other child in Weatherly's, and his reward is information about his parents; whom he'd assumed died years before.
Tom, being a good person, knows that he can't betray his friends, even if it means that he can get his family back; so a plot is hatched to break him and his best friend Sarah out of the place. The planning of the escape, the pandemonium that ensues because of it, and the breaking out of Weatherly's were my favourite part. The kids were clever, they'd plotted out an elaborate and complex plan that sounded like it could really work; and of course, like any good plan there were things that went wrong along the way that threw obstacles in our heroes way. It was so much fun to read, and despite knowing that Tom and Sarah must escape, there was still a sense of tension.
Once Tom and Sarah manage to leave the orphanage they engage in a chase across England, being followed by a detective who's written to be the greatest police officer in the country, Gowerstone. Gowerstone is brought in to find the missing children by the orphanage owners, but then doesn't seem to be working for them. He is able to take charge of multiple forces across the country, in Cambridge, London, and Canterbury, and seems to be answerable only to the Prime Minister. He seems to know each step the kids are going to make before even the reader, and has access to all kinds of info that he's a walking supercomputer.
Gowerstone was the first part of the book that threw me. It seemed like C.R. Stewart wanted some kind of super special police officer/secret agent type tracking down the kids, but never really gives too much of an explanation for it. How were the orphanage owners able to get him on the case, yet he be working in an official capacity? I'd understand them calling him in if her were a private detective, but he's very clearly working for the police. It's also never explained how he's able to command so many different branches of the police, and has apparently unlimited resources, including firearms squads, to find two runaways.
The strangeness of Gowerstone made me begin to suspect that the author wasn't hugely familiar with the workings of British police forces, and this began to spill out into other parts of the book too. Every location that Tom and Sarah visit is almost overly described, but in a very clinical way. The author gives almost map-like directions when they travel around London, telling us which streets they take and in sequence, giving us historical facts about when certain buildings on those streets were built. Canterbury is broken down into which parts of the city were built in which century, but the smaller details about what the streets were like were glossed over.
There were a few other things, such as people describing travelling through London with 'blocks', and saying that London Underground tickets would cost £2.50 each really threw me out. It came as no surprise to learn at the end of the book that C.R. Stewart was not a British native, and lived in the US. They seemed to want to set their story in England and include these famous, historical location, and they clearly did a lot of research about these places; unfortunately it often came across as a little cold and distant. I wanted to see these places through the eyes of the two children, not with a breakdown of the historical info the author researched.
I wish I could say these were the only issues I found with the book, but once the kids left the orphanage I began to enjoy the story less and less. Okay, stealing the Hot Air Balloon was fun, and an interesting and unique form of cross-country escape, but the two of them didn't really feel in too much danger. This was largely because most of the people they came across helped them, gave them food, gave them clothing, helped them escape the police, did things for free for them. Either everyone in Britain are super nice people who help children (trust me, we're not) or Tom and Sarah have some kind of pheromones that makes everyone do things for them. It began to get a little ridiculous if I'm being honest.
I know I seem like I've criticised the book a lot, and that's just because it wasn't to my particular tastes; you might feel differently. As a book intended for kids I'm sure that a lot of the things that brought me out of the narrative or bugged me won't be an issue to children in the target audience. As it is, the book is a fun little adventure story, it has some mild peril that won't traumatise child readers, and has lots of nice people in it helping the heroes. If that's the kind of thing you're looking for for your own children, this book will definitely keep them entertained.
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