Plus a half star. Written the year before I was born [no actually written under another name in 1936]. And beautifully written. The ending lets it down but up to that point it's a tight adventure and coming of age tale. I remember it being almost unbearably sad what happens to the Plesiosaur, but as a teenager I accepted a somehow inevitable battle between the people and the beast. Now I am very uncomfortable with the outcome and the failure of imagination of both the characters and the author. ( )

Plus a half star. Written the year before I was born [no actually written under another name in 1936]. And beautifully written. The ending lets it down but up to that point it's a tight adventure and coming of age tale. I remember it being almost unbearably sad what happens to the Plesiosaur, but as a teenager I accepted a somehow inevitable battle between the people and the beast. Now I am very uncomfortable with the outcome and the failure of imagination of both the characters and the author. ( )

From 1963 vintage Scholastic cover:

No fisherman in his right mind will go near the place, for even the bravest of them remembers all too well the grinning skulls washedup on the jagged rocks outside the cave.

Four good ships and their crews have vanished here. But how? Young Dick Garland is determined to solve the mystery. He slips out of the house and takes a boat to the cave.

As his flashlight shines on the walls, he hears a high scream. The rocks shake. A huge shape cuts the water like a submarine. The tide flings Dick into total darkness, and then...

From flyleaf:

Meet Lola Pelayo. She doesn't want to talk about the Cave, and the strange things that happen there. In a moment of anger she tells Dick, "If you aren't afraid, go and spend a night in the Cave!"

Meet Dick Garland:

He takes the dare. "I'll go tonight!" he tells Lola. "You see if I don't."

And that's how a hair-raising adventure begins--adventure which leads to teh amazing solution of the mystery.