Leepike Ridge

By N.D. Wilson

Rating: 4 stars

Reviewed by Noelle

Eleven year old Tom Hammond has always lived in the chained down house on top of Leepike Ridge. About 3 1/2 years ago, his father was killed in a plane accident, and when annoying teacher Jeffrey Veatch starts courting his mother, Tom is anything but pleased. The night Jeffrey proposes, Tom angrily leaves his house after bedtime and decides to lie on a piece of refrigerator packing foam in the stream to cool off. He wakes up far downstream, about to go under the mountain! Tom is swept into the underground caverns with nothing to help him and winds up on a small beach where he finds a corpse, a dog and some supplies. But there are even more terrors, surprises and wonders in the black caverns, including the truth behind his father's death as well as a long lost treasure. But one thing Tom is sure of--he's getting out if it is the last thing he does! This pageturner will have readers hooked quickly. This is a hard hitting, fast-moving story which dabbles anything but lightly with life, death, and treasure hunting--an Indiana Jones story with all that entails would be a good comparison. It might be an impossible story, and has a rather neatly tied up ending, but readers will enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts.