Item - The Mystery of Echo Lodge

I was hoping that this would be another mystery along the lines of Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey?, but alas it wasn't. Instead it's a blend of mysticism and crime that I failed to find terribly interesting. The book has a few pleasantly creepy moments, but it's missing the sense of discovery that makes a good mystery (or most kinds of adventure, for that matter) engaging.

More reviews by Demian

I know one thing. It's weird.

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The Mystery of Echo Lodge, Louise Munro Foley's third Choose Your Own Adventure, has a similar title to her second, The Mystery of the Highland Crest. The books are unrelated, but could Ms. Foley produce another near classic like that one? You are visiting your aunt Sadie in December at Echo Lodge, the ski resort she owns close by Lake Tahoe. You meet Sadie's bellman, Russell Lyons, as well as Heidi, a detective Sadie has on staff in response to recent trouble at Echo Lodge. You haven't even settled in when the fire alarm screeches, and Heidi orders you to evacuate the lodge. On the second floor you hear commotion in Room 223, but the door is locked and no one heeds your call. Should you run downstairs for the key at the front desk, or barge your way inside?

Searching for the key, you find a diamond wristwatch among Heidi's belongings...the same watch reported stolen last night from Countess Maria, who's staying at Echo Lodge. Shortly after, you overhear an unknown person plotting for skiers to suffer an accident. Should you report it to Heidi, or Sadie? Tell Sadie, and she informs you of the "Paiute jinx." Russell, a member of the Pit River Indian tribe, warned Sadie last year against expanding the lodge onto sacred tribal grounds. Is the jinx now inevitable? Sadie assigns you simple maintenance tasks to keep you out of harm's way; while working, you may learn Heidi is about to visit the ski slopes with a Mr. Yarman. Is he her accomplice in sabotaging Echo Lodge? After all, you found the countess's wristwatch in Heidi's cubby. If you chose earlier to help the chef prepare meals, his assistant, Karen, asks you to taste his specialty soup before it's served to customers. Politely decline, and you learn the soup is drugged; was it Karen? The lodgers lose consciousness, and thieves show up to rob them. If you sipped the soup when Karen offered, you pass out and awaken locked in a room of an unfamiliar hotel. Climb out the window to get help, but if Karen’s henchmen catch you, they'll maroon you on Emerald Island in the middle of Lake Tahoe. Can you survive the extreme seasonal cold? Perhaps the cheerful ghost of Captain Dick, a Brit who died a century ago, shows up to lend a hand.

Did you choose to break down the door of Room 223 rather than run downstairs for the key? To your astonishment, the door is suddenly unlocked. The room is empty but for a gray hawk who goes on the attack. You scramble downstairs, lightly bleeding and confused. Address your concerns to Russell the bellman and he dismisses them, but he's hiding something. Run back up to Room 223 and, incredibly, Russell is there...offering to explain everything. He says a Mr. Hawkins, a "gray shaman" of the Pit River tribe, is behind the Paiute jinx and wants to eliminate Echo Lodge. Go with Russell to the mountain to shatter Mr. Hawkins's curse, and your ideas of the supernatural will be stretched to the limit. Can you defeat the gray shaman and preserve Echo Lodge against tragedy? Traverse the mountain toward its summit and you could witness a death match between Hawkins's hawk and Russell's own spirit animal, a mountain lion. Barring that, you have to stop Hawkins from triggering a disaster-level avalanche, but are you powerful enough without Russell's spiritual weaponry? There's a way or two of rescuing Echo Lodge and not interacting with shaman magic at all, but in most cases success hinges on Russell.

I suppose it’s possible to reconcile this book's various narrative paths so internal consistency remains unbroken, but you'd have a lot of work to do. It's more reasonable to conclude The Mystery of Echo Lodge has, at best, spotty consistency; sometimes the sabotage against Echo Lodge is done by the owner of the rival Maple Leaf Inn, and other times it's supernatural. The inconsistency creates a bumpy ride for the reader, and a surprisingly dull one. Louise Munro Foley reverts to the lack of discipline that marred her first Choose Your Own Adventure, The Lost Tribe, instead of the wisdom and intense drama that lifted The Mystery of the Highland Crest to decidedly above average. The Mystery of Echo Lodge isn't much fun, and little reason exists to reread it.

More reviews by KenJenningsJeopardy74

An interesting mystery with multiple plotlines near the enchanting Lake Tahoe.

As a child, it was a fascinating read, and inspired me to visit the real Lake Tahoe.

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