A review by kythera
The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd

5.0

Reviewers, ffs. You are allowed to have more than one autistic hero in literature… sweet ghods above. There seems to be a bizarre consensus in the reviews that it’s a rip off of ‘The Curious Dog…’. They are both set in London and they both have a protagonist with autism. There you go. If I were going to recommend one or the other to a YA reader, it would be this one every time. Mystery! Annoying sisters! The shipping forecast! Topological maps!

Ted is an autistic boy and he’s got a mystery to solve, as well as navigating through his complex family who really aren’t easy to understand either. His cousin, Salim, got on the London Eye, and never got off again. Solving this is a complex mystery, but Ted is there for us.

This is a warm, incredibly well plotted book. As Robin Stevens says in the Introduction, all the clues are there, but are you clever enough to put them together? I was not, but the solution is so good that this just added to my enjoyment.

Finally, Ted is not a ‘unique’ hero. He’s very much part of the world we live in. His curiosity and love of weather systems are just as much part of daily experiences as everything else around us. More Teds, please.