The Dopple Ganger Chronicles No. 1 - The First Escape

A doppelgänger is defined as a "ghostly counterpart of a living person." However, author G.P. Taylor took the work and used it to define not one, not two, but three characters in his series, The Dopple Ganger Chronicles. Now, it should be noted - this series came out back in 2008, and that is when I bought this first book, as well as the second book, in the series. The second book ended with a cliffhanger, leaving me with an expectation that a third book would be published. So I waited...and I waited...and I waited...and I finally gave up, I shelved the two books after reading them, and promptly put the series to the back of my mind.

Until a few weeks ago, as I was perusing Amazon.com, and somehow I came across this series as a suggested book. The only thing is, instead of showing two books in the series, it actually shows THREE books in the series! It seems the book was published back in 2011, but somehow I managed to never see it, and thus, for the past six years have assumed the third book never came to be. Obviously, I bought the book, but once I received it, I realized something - I honestly did not remember the details of the stories from books one and two. So, what else could I do? I decided to go back and start from the beginning...

The First Escape introduces readers to Sadie and Saskia Dopple, two trouble-making twin sisters who are identical in every way - except their eyes, which are mirror versions of each other (one blue, one yellow). The girls were orphaned by their mother and left at the Isambard Dunstan's School for Wayward Children, which is run by the very strict, very cruel headmistress, Miss Rimmer, who is looking for any excuse possible to get rid of the Dopple sisters. And that moment comes when the mysterious Muzz Elliott shows up at the school - and makes her wishes known that she wants to adopt Saska and not Sadie!

Taylor spins a fun little mystery that is filled with plenty of high-spirited antics and life-threatening dangers, and quite honestly, it's refreshing to see some protagonists who are not only NOT squeaky-clean, but who are devious little pranksters and have no qualms about thumbing their nose at authority. And if you're wondering, that second part of the "Dopple Ganger" refers to Erik Ganger, the only boy at the School for Wayward Children who also happens to be a former thief. He helps Sadie escape the school (which definitely makes for some fun-filled reading) and is instrumental in helping the sisters with the mystery surrounding Muzz Elliott's home and a missing treasure.

The story is told not only through prose, but also through comic book-style pages of art and story, and also through some rather interesting formatted pages that integrate the typed text with the action of the story (you have to see it to understand what I am talking about). But it all works - none of it jars the reader from the story, but rather, it actually enhances the uniqueness of the story and its characters.

On a side note, something I had forgotten about this series is the fact that it is a Christian-based series. There are some subtle references to God and angels, and I'm actually curious to see where Taylor takes these concepts in the next two books.

RATING: 8 stuffed donkey hinds out of 10 for finding a unique way to tell a unique story with unique characters - and to pull it off so successfully!