Book review
Three thrilling adventures featuring the indomitable cousins Dinu, Minu, Polly and Ravi
When Ravi comes from Bombay to stay with his three cousins for the summer holidays, little does he realize this is the beginning of a series of exciting events that will test their intelligence and luck.
In the first story a string of audacious robberies occur in their usually quiet town. Who is the thief? Is it the sinister Dhondu who seems to hate the children, or is he covering up for someone else?
In The Hidden Treasure the four cousins end up spending their Diwali holiday in Kaka's farm in a village. Village life is fun, especially with their broken-down ancestral mansion to explore. Gradually the children realize there is something sinister afoot. Who has been digging away in the mansion in the dead of night? Did their ancestor really bury his life's savings in their sprawling ancestral home before joining the 1857 uprising, or is it just a legend? And, if the treasure's still there, will they get to it before the crooks do?

In the last novel, it's Dinu, Minu and Polly's turn to visit Bombay and spend the summer with Ravi. There they make new friends, one of whom claims to have seen the face of a bank robber. Soon after, a spate of robberies break out all over Bombay. Is it the same gang at work? Then their friend is kidnapped and the four children find themselves in the midst of a desperate chase . . .

Thrilling, funny, and full of memorable characters, these three novels, first published in the 1970s, are sure to captivate a whole new generation of readers.

• Published by Penguin Books India
• Published: July 2006
• Imprint: Puffin
• ISBN: 0143335111
• Edition: Paperback
• Format: B
• Extent: 392pp
• Classification: Children/Fiction
• Rights: World



About the author Shashi Deshpande was born in Dharwad, India, daughter of the renowned dramatist and Sanskrit scholar, Shriranga. At the age of fifteen she went to Mumbai, where she graduated in Economics; she then moved to Bangalore, where she gained a degree in Law. The early years of her marriage were largely given over to the care of her two young sons but she took a course in journalism and for a time worked on a magazine. Her writing career only began in earnest in 1970, initially with short stories, of which several volumes have been published. She is also the author of four children’s books and four other novels—That Long Silence, If I Die Today, Come Up and Be Dead and Roots and Shadows, which won a prize for the best Indian novel of 1982-83. Shashi Deshpande lives in Bangalore with her Pathologist husband, and has recently completed her MA in English literature.