As I was browsing through the many books at the library, my attention settled on a bright red book. The Horizontal Man, it was called. That aroused my imagination more than any other books that I’ve ever read. No other books have ever fascinated me to such an extent. I am not attracted to many young adult books because they appear rather dull. However this one was different from the others. To satisfy my curiosity, I took the book off the shelf and turned it over. I perused the back cover and then flipped to a random to a random page as I usually do to test the book’s ability to hook my interest. Though the type was small, and pages were many, I was instantly grasped with a desire to read the entire novel from cover to cover. Unfortunately, my library was not on me, so I had to wait till the next day to check the book.

            The Horizontal Man is a mystery. The opening is pretty basic. Finnegan Zwake, a thirteen –year –old, living with his Uncle Stoppard, a famous mystery writer, tells the story of how his parents had gone to Iceland to search for ruins of an ancient civilization and were never heard from again, which is why he is living with his uncle. One day, Finnegan, or Finn for short, finds a package for his neighbor, Pablo Desoto, which got mixed with his Uncle Stoppard’s fanmail. Mrs. Pryce, happened to be in Pablo’s apartment and as Finnegan walks into the apartment, he sees a gold statue on the coffee table, the Horizontal Man. He races back to his own room and glances at the only picture of his parents that he owns. In the foreground is the Horizontal Man. His parents had excavated it at Agualar, near Mexico while Finnegan had only been an infant. He examined the Horizontal Man again and then rushed to his uncle’s office. At first, Uncle Stoppard was quite agitated that Finnegan had just barged in on him like that, but when Finn had gotten his uncle to understand the urgency of the interruption, Uncle Stoppard finally calmed down and remembered something that was very important. All the artifacts that Finnegan’s parents had excavated at Agualar had been in their storage room for seven years. That could explain how the Horizontal Man could have gotten into Pablo’s apartment. Uncle Stoppard was supposed to have sent the discoveries to the Ackerberg Institute, but what with his books and caring care of Finnegan he had forgotten all about the artifacts down in the storage room.

            With the key that his uncle had given to him in hand, Finn runs downstairs to the storage room that they share with Pablo. A strange scratching sound was heard and when uncle stoppard joined him by the storage room door, he heard it too. When Finn first tried the key, it didn’t work, so he thought that they had the wrong key. Uncle stoppard found that it was actually the wrong lock. Sure enough all of the other locks were dull and gray while their lock outshone all of them. Something else that they both notice was that the pungent aroma of really old cheese permeated the air. Uncle stoppard used a screwdriver and camera to remove the pins from the door hinges. Uncle stoppard pulled the door away, and that was the first real shocker in the story. A corpse, its face half devoured by rodents lay on the floor of the room. Finn thought that maybe Pablo had killed that person. That night Pablo came back home, having been at a computer convention for a while. The next day Finnegan asked him about the Horizontal Man that had been on the coffee table, but was now nowhere to be seen. When asked about it, Pablo seemed to know nothing of it. When told about the man found in their shared storage room, he was astonished and had to go see the scene of the crime himself. Finn was about to leave after he went up with Pablo to his apartment, but hen as he was leaving a cry of surprises was heard from the kitchen. In the plastic dish bin, was a spoon that was a dull yellow color. Finn grabbed it and ran before Pablo could say a thing. The rest of the story twists and turns and one can never figure out what can happen next. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes reading. Surprises await anyone who reads this book. If you don’t read this book you don’t know what you’re missing.

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