The Black Island

The Black Island is the seventh of the Tintin series. The story starts off with a bang as Tintin is out for a walk with his dog Snowy and comes upon a plane that appears to be in trouble. The plane makes an emergency landing, and when Tintin approaches to see if he can help, he is shot for his trouble! Luckily it's just a grazing wound, and he wakes up in the hospital more or less okay. There he hears from the bumbling detectives Thomson and Thompson that an unregistered plane has crashed in England, and they have been put on the case. Coincidence? Surely not. 

Tintin checks himself out of the hospital and proceeds to investigate, and the usual crazy chain of events ensues. Tintin is soon matching wits with those who don't want him snooping around. He gets captured, escapes (with the help of Snowy) and soon runs afoul of a Dr. Muller, who appears to be the ringleader of a band of forgers. He chases the bad guys all over England and ends up in Scotland, where he traces them to a crumbling castle on a desolate island. The castle is apparently not uninhabited however- there is a local legend of a mysterious creature that resides there, and no one ever returns. This doesn't deter Tintin and Snowy of course, and when they arrive they find the legend to be true- although it's not what they would have expected. More hijinks ensue, Snowy comes to the rescue again, and Tintin finally comes face to face with the ringleader of the whole operation- and gets a bit of timely last minute assistance. It's pretty much nonstop action from the get-go. I almost got breathless reading this! 

We found this on vacation and had to get it. My daughter loves these and we had a lot of fun laughing over this one.This is an earlier one in the series so the larger supporting cast of later volumes is absent- it's mostly Tintin and Snowy here, but that's fine and it works. The artwork is superb as always, and really gives you a feel for the locations that Tintin goes to. This one has it all- a chase on a train, plane crashes, you name it. A fun, action packed story and a joy to look at as well.