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Summary: Never trust a dead man
Review: Never Trust a dead man is a book with alot of good characters. It is one os the best books I ever read. It hase a really good plot. In this book two men fall in love with one women and when she chooses a man named Farold over the main character because of his money. The next Day Farold is found dead and Anora the wopmen he was going to marry is shoucked and will not come out of her house. The main character is then accused and put in a cave to die. I liked this book because it is a good mix of fantasy action and mystery. This is a good book and if you like fantasy with witches spells, action and mystery then this is a good book for you. If you want to know if the main character finds out who,did it you will have to raed the book. The title might give you a clue what happens.
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Summary: Hilarious and Original!
Review: Never Trust a Dead Man is a highly entertaining, humorous and original. An intriguing mystery. Vivian Vande Velde has written a tight knit mystery, with a host of characters-most of them suspects. With puzzle pieces all over the place, I could not wait to finish the tale to see what the final picture displayed.
Selwyn is a young man, working the farmland with his father when a mob from the village shows up. Selwyn has been accused of murdering Farold. The villagers have all the proof they need. Both had been courting beautiful Anora. Recently, Anora chose Farold to marry. Perhaps embarrassed, Selwyn started a fight with Farold, in which Farold won. To make matters worse, it was Selwyn's knife found at the murder scene.
Selwyn, in front of a Star Chamber proceeding, is sentenced to be sealed with Farold's corpse in the community burial. Thought to be doomed, Selwyn cannot believe when he encounters a witch. With hasty promises made, the witch agrees to help Selwyn out of the tomb. She also agrees to bring Farold back, so he can tell Selwyn who the true murderer is. The spell goes awry and Farold is returned as a bat. Worse, he does not know who killed him.
Promising to serve the witch as a slave for many years, Selwyn and Farold set out to find the killer and to let Selwyn's family know that he is all right. The witch, for a price, provides the two with disguises. Selwyn has only one week to solve the crime before he must return to repay his dent to the witch.
Never Trust a Dead Man is just full of laugh-out-loud bantering dialogue, hilarious situations and an insistent sense of urgency to figure out who is responsible for killing Farold. This is a spry and witty, a solid mystery. Vivian Vande Velde is quickly becoming my favorite young adult novelist.
--Phillip Tomasso III, author of Third Ring, Tenth House & Mind Play
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Summary: Never Trust a Dead Man
Review: Never Trust a Dead Man is about Selwyn (17 year old) who is convicted of a murder. For punishment he has to sit in the burial cave with Farold (dead man). A witch comes to the rescue and helps Selwyn find the true murderer. The witch brings Farold back from the dead. The true murderer was ... You'll have to find out yourself. I would recommend this book to people who like witchcraft and to anyone because I thought it was a GREAT book!
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Summary: funny and witty
Review: Never Trust a Dead Man was a great read. Just when you think you know who the murderer is, the plot just takes another twist, and instead of solving the mystery, you're just plunged deeper into it with another suspect. The characters were well-thought out and the plot was just complicated enough to make the reader want to read more and more.
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Summary: a gre8 mystery that u don't find everyday!
Review: One of the reasons I like this book is because it has a plot that you usually doen't read about everyday. The main character is falsly accused of commiting murder to a man that is an enimey because he asked to marry the girl he loved. The main character's punishment is to be locked up in the cave where the dead man is buried. A witch comes when the main character starts to feel down and the main character gets to leave with the witch...
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Summary: Fantasy/Humor/Murder Mystery, this book has it all!
Review: Selwyn is accused of murdering Farold, a romantic rival, and sentenced to be "buried alive" in the burial cave with his alleged victim. Selwyn is innocent, and fortunately for him, he meets a witch named Elswyth who has entered the cave from a secret entrance to obtain spell-making materials. She agrees to help him, but whacks him on the head every time he asks a stupid question (which is frequently) and asks him to pledge years of his life in service to her as payment. He agrees, and asks her to bring Farold back to life so he can ask him who the real murderer is. Unfortunatley, he muffs his part of the spell, and instead of being magiked into his own body, the Farold is installed in the body of a bat. And, since he was stabbed in the back, (a fact Selwyn somehow overlooked) he has no idea who killed him. Eventually the three (Selwyn, Farold and Elswyth)come up with a plan to find the real murderer and clear Selwyn's name. I thought this book was fabulous. The characters are fully-realized, and the plot zips right along. My favorite thing about it is the relationship between Selwyn & Farold, who were enemies in life, but grow to be friends after Farold's death and transformation into a bat. Their banter is hilarious, and I also loved Elswyth, who is probably the smartest, and certainly the most sensible character in the book. Highly recommended for fantasy/mystery fans age 10 and up.
Rating:
Summary: Never Trust A Dead Man
Review: The Book Never Trust A Dead Man, is my favorit book, it has mistery, comedy, and fantisy, all neatly rolled into one great story. Vivian Velde wrote a great story that is why I gave it a five.
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Summary: From Shakespeare, through Welles, to Vande Velde
Review: The idea for NEVER TRUST A DEAD MAN came because I love to watch TV. Specifically, I was watching the 1950 version of OTHELLO. (For fans of classic movies, that's the one with Orson Welles.) The movie starts with Othello already dead, so that the rest of the movie is one long flashback that ends only once we get back to where we started. So--Othello is dead, and his men are bringing his body to be buried. But they're also arresting the evil Iago who has brought about this sad state of affairs. Since they're taking Iago away at the same time they're taking Othello's body away, I thought, "Wow! They're going to bury the two of them together! Yuck! Neat!" As it turned out, the living Iago was not to be buried with his dead victim. Othello's men put Iago in a little cage and hung it up from the castle battlements. But that powerful mental image stayed with from that grim beginning NEVER TRUST A DEAD MAN became a comedy. Note that I'm not comparing myself to William Shakespeare or Orson Welles--I'm just explaining where this particular idea came from
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Summary: The Dead Man Becomes Alive!
Review: This book is about witchcraft. In the story, Selwyn, the 17-year old boy, is accused of a murder.Farold is the guy who is murdered. Selwyn is innocent, but he is punished. He was sent to a burial cave and was locked. The witch helped him get out of there and made Farold alive in a bat's body. You'll have to find out who is the real murderer when you read the book. I greatly recommend this book. It's a GREAT BOOK!
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Summary: A good Misterious and Humurous Book
Review: When the Librarian handed me Never Trust a Dead Man written by Vivian Vande Velde I thought it would be boring, but when I got into the book I though it was one of the best books I've ever read.
Filled with mystery and humor, Never Trust a Dead Man is a story about a young 17-year-old teenager named Selwyn that has had a bad week. His love, a beautiful girl named Anora left him, and that broke his heart. She left him for a boy named Farold, and decided to marry him. After this, both Farold and Selwyn had a fight in front of the whole gossip village people, in which Farold won. To end his bad week, Farold killed with his knife. The knife was shot deep inside his back while he was sleeping. The next day the gossip villagers came to get Selwyn, and bring him to trial. All the villagers thought he was the one, who had committed the crime, because the knife that was used to commit the crime was his, and they all remember the fight with Farold; they know he wants Anora. So the villagers take Selwyn to Anora's house. In Anora's house, Anora's father shows Farold his knife, and tells him the evidence against him. Anora's father and the villagers declare him guilty. Because he was declared guilty, he is buried alive with Farold's body in the burial caves. Then when they close the rock gate he is left scared in the darkness surrounded by smelly bodies. Then a witch named Elswyth appears and offers to take him outside of the cave if he would be her servant for one year. He accepts, but then he asks for more wishes, one of those wishes was to revive Farold. At the end Selwyn has to serve Elswyth for six years. When Elswyth was doing the spell, and Selwyn was helping her to revive Farold, Selwyn did a mistake and Farold revive as a bat. Also in the deal Elswyth gave Selwyn one week to find the real murderer so he would be free of charge. The worst part was that Farold didn't know who had killed him because he was struck in his back at night. Are they going to be able to find the murderer in one week?
Read the book and find out who was the real murderer. I think everybody should read this book. I think the author did a good job in expressing the humorous and mysterious feeling of the book. I would recommend this book mostly to boys from 13 to 18 years old.
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