The first "lightweight" story in the series. It is the first where Jenny is full in the lead, but the premise is simply that she befriends a "bullied" gentleman who is interested in Roman artefacts. eventually they find a bunch of Roman plates in a race against time, due to a sudden flood (fifth novel, third flood)

In this story -

* the Lone Piners go to Seven Gates again

* Mackie is hurt by Percy but gets revenge

* The twins imprison Percy

* Reuben, Miranda and Fenella reappear

* Everything ends with a feast and explanations ( )

Fifth adventure in the 'Lone Pine' series for teenagers. I don't suppose today's teenagers would be very interested in this innocent adventure story of the mid twentieth century. But I grew up on them, and love to re-read every so often. I've now acquired the 'Girls Gone By' full edition, which is considerably better than the abridged versions.

It's a reasonably exciting story involving six of the Lone Pine club, a likeable elderly man, and three distinctly unpleasant strangers. One or two unexpectedly moving moments. Good light reading, and while it stands alone it's best to have read at least one or two of the earlier books in the series beforehand.

Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2020/12/lone-pine-five-by-malcolm-saville.h... ( )

Back when I was a member of FOCS, I kept reading about people’s love of the Malcolm Saville books. I’d never heard of him before, but since I also discovered the Abbey books through FOCS, I was intrigued. Finally, at the University of Canberra library, I discovered one. Not the first in the series, but I wasn’t about to argue. Here was my chance to discover the Lone pine novels!
I have to say, I was somewhat surprised. I found the story to be by turns long and bogged down in detail, entertaining, and even, occasionally, exciting. But mostly I was a bit shocked. I think this truly was a case of culture shock – translating current mores onto the past. But I can’t imagine even an Enid Blyton adult actively assisting children to eavesdrop on complete strangers, whose only known fault is bad driving. Perhaps it was more common then to allow even young children real freedom, but when was it ever appropriate simply to laugh at children seeking, and enacting, revenge? And those twins are truly annoying.
All in all, I don’t think I’ll ever be a huge fan of the Lone pine series, which is probably fortunate since I’ll be lucky to ever come across another title. But it has been interesting to discover another world and to discover my own reactions to it. ( )