Review of "A Power Boys Adventure: The Mystery of the Burning Ocean," by Mel Lyle

 Review of

A Power Boys Adventure: The Mystery of the Burning Ocean, by Mel Lyle

Four out of five stars

Solid adventure involving teenage boys

 Like all solid books written for the YA market that has teen boys as the central characters, the plot features the boys doing something that most want to do. In this case it is scuba diving. Jack and Chip Power are in the Caribbean with their widowed father. He is a photographer that travels around to the get the best shots. The boys were scheduled to go back to their home base of New York City, but when their father decides to pursue another option, he allows the boys to stay for some additional time. Their father admonishes them to be careful when diving before boarding his flight.

 The Power Boys adventure literally falls down in front of them when another teen boy that is heavily sunburned collapses in front of them. His name is Bob, and his goal is to recover a figurine that was sunk in his father’s yacht. In his will, Bob’s father had made the stipulation that Bob must recover the figurine before he could inherit from his father’s estate. When he learns that Jack and Chip know how to dive, Bob asks them to teach him so that he can recover the figurine.

The now allied trio knows that there is a protagonist, but there are two candidates for the opposition. Clues are put forward pointing towards two different men, but this is not resolved until the end. There is adventure with a hint of danger, both from the act of diving around a shipwreck to that from their opposition. None of it is extremely serious, mostly just threats.

 Since the story is based on two standard adventure concepts of diving and exploring sunken ships, this is a good one. It keeps the reader’s interest at a level that is high enough that you want to keep the pages turning.