The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage
A Classic British Village Mystery of Child Detectives, Clues, Alibis, and Comic MisdirectionBy Enid Blyton
Length4h 42m
About this audiobook
Enid Blyton's *The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage* inaugurates the celebrated Five Find-Outers series with a deceptively simple village crime: after a cottage burns down, the circumstances suggest arson, yet the local adults struggle to identify a convincing suspect. Five resourceful children—Larry, Daisy, Pip, Bets, and Frederick—undertake their own investigation, aided and challenged by the dog Buster and opposed by the official authority of Inspector Jenks. Blyton combines brisk plotting, accessible dialogue, recurring character types, and carefully placed clues to create a classic puzzle mystery for young readers. First published in 1943, the novel belongs to the Golden Age tradition of fair-play detection, adapting its emphasis on evidence, deduction, and revelation to the imaginative independence of childhood. Blyton was among the twentieth century's most prolific and influential writers for children. Her experience as a teacher and educator helped shape her strong sense of narrative clarity, while her deep understanding of children's reading pleasures informed her recurring themes of friendship, adventure, secrecy, and self-reliance. In this novel, she presents young investigators as capable moral agents whose observations deserve serious attention, reflecting her characteristic confidence in childhood initiative. This book is especially rewarding for readers who enjoy traditional mysteries, rural settings, ensemble casts, and logically unfolding investigations. Its concise chapters and lively suspense make it an inviting introduction to Blyton, while its portrayal of children claiming intellectual authority offers a revealing example of mid-century children's literature.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.2 (7.7K)
Includes Goodreads, Amazon, StoryGraph, LibraryThing
GenreChildren's Literature
Length4 hrs 42 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateDec 8, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1By the Shores of Silver Lake (Annotated)
2The Burning Cottage
3The Five Find-outers—and Dog
4The First Meeting
5Clues and—Clear-orf!
Show all chaptersShow less
6Fatty and Larry Learn a Few Things
7Mrs. Minns does a lot of Talking
8The Tramp—Clear-orf—and Fatty
9What must be done next?
10Lily comes into the Story
11Interviewing Mr. Horace Peeks
12The Tramp turns up Again
13Mr. Smellie—and a Rubber-soled Shoe!
14A Surprising Talk with Lily
15Clear-Orf turns up at an Awkward Moment
16A Fright for Larry and Fatty
17Surprises and Shocks
18Very Strange Discoveries
19An Unexpected Friend
20The End of the Mystery
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