The four youngest Marlows - twins Nicola and Lawrie, next-oldest sister Ginty, and youngest brother Peter - were spending their Easter holiday at the seaside with their mother, while work was being done on their home in London. St.-Anne's-Byfleet seemed like the sort of quiet fishing village where nothing ever happened, but when Nicola and Peter met up with one of Peter's Dartmouth instructors on a morning walk, only to be surprised and dismayed by his refusal to greet them, they knew they had stumbled onto something odd. And when their exploration of Mariners, a seemingly abandoned estate nearby, led them to stolen Naval papers, they set in motion a chain of events both thrilling and horrifying, in which they found themselves confronting a traitor...

The second of Antonia Forest's ten-book series devoted to the adventures of the Marlow family, The Marlows and the Traitor shifts focus after the initial Autumn Term, offering an exciting holiday adventure rather than a girls' school-story. This switch allows for a greater focus on family and sibling dynamics, with a larger role given to characters - such as Peter Marlow - who appeared only briefly in the first title. It also sets the standard for the rest of the books, which seem to be an eclectic mix of genres.

What particularly impressed me about The Marlows and the Traitor - thoroughly convincing me that Antonia Forest was no garden variety school-story author - was not that it was a suspenseful and highly readable espionage thriller for young readers (although it was certainly that), but that the author managed to create such complex characters. The children are rarely perfect little heroines, with Ginty funking it altogether, and devolving into a sobbing dysfunctional mess, and Lawrie being a rather self-involved and self-congratulatory ass, despite having had the smallest role to play. But it is Lewis Foley, the sometime amiable, sometime terrifying villain of the piece, that really stands out, and like the Marlow children themselves, I was struck by his good qualities, and found myself wishing he weren't a traitor. That Forest manages to evoke such feelings, without ever downplaying the seriousness of what Foley has done, is a true testament to her skills as an author.

All in all, an outstanding book, both as a stand-alone adventure, and an installment in the ongoing series. I was a little shocked at the casual (and solitary) use of the word "n*gger" - was this sort of thing still considered unexceptional, in 1950s Britain? - but save for that unfortunate blight, would whole-heartedly recommend this book. ( )

I only ever read the school stories in the Marlow series as a child. I found them to have a lot more realism about them than most school stories and I've always thought I'd like to see what the non school stories were like but they are really hard to get hold of. Girls Gone By are republishing the books now and this is the second in the series after Autumn Term. Well worth the read. The Marlow children are eminently believable kids even if the plot here is somewhat more far fetched than I remember the school stories being. This tale involves Nicola, Peter and Ginty being locked up in a lighthouse by the traitor of the title and it takes place soon after the end of the second world war.

This is an adventure story set on the English coast in the 1940s. As well as a good yarn, it also presents some worthwhile characterization. The protagonists are not cardboard-cut-out children, but neatly-drawn individuals, and the effects of their various failings (childish pride, impetuousness, minor cowardice) make the development of the story all the more credible. MB 20-xi-2007 ( )

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