By Mary Stewart

**Spoilers**

I had just seen the Disney movie The Moon-Spinners for about the millionth time motivated by reading Hayley Mills’s autobiography. I had forgotten how different it was from the book. In both, Nicola Ferris our 22-year-old young heroine runs across Mark in Crete while on vacation with her forty-something cousin Frances. In the book, Mark is already wounded and in hiding with his Greek friend, Lambis. In the movie, they are both guests at a small family hotel. They meet at a party the first night but the next morning, he is mysteriously missing. Of course, the book has Colin, Mark’s kidnapped little brother instead of the friendly Greek youth of the movie. That was a plus. Mark’s and Nicky’s anguish and our suspense over whether the bad guys had killed Colin or taken him hostage added a lot to the novel. The scenes where Nicky and Colin find a buried body that appears to be Mark’s and the discovery of the truth later make gripping reading.

There is one main thing, though, that I feel the movie improves upon and that is Mark’s motivation for his conflict and danger from Stavros and company. In the book, Mark and Colin are threatened because they witnessed a murder among thieves. But in the movie, Mark was accused of stealing some jewels in London and the only way he can clear his name is to follow Stavros to Crete, recover them, and prove Stavros was the real thief. This brings in the iconic Pola Negri to play the part of Madame Habib to whom Stavros is bringing the jewels to sell. Those scenes, and also the scenes at the diplomat’s house that they take refuge in only to find out he is one of the gang are really suspenseful and add a lot more adventure to the plot of the movie.

I did enjoy the Moonspinners very much despite the sub-par narration of Daphne Kouma. Her enunciation was not the clearest and she often whispered to convey tension or suspense in the story which also made her difficult to understand sometimes. The romance between Mark and Nicky was very slight and rather subtle, but it was sweeter than in the movie. The characters of Colin and Lambis added some humor and depth. Nicky’s successful Cat and Mouse with Sophia, Tony, and Stratos until she makes a fatal mistake keeps you on the edge. And of course, Mary Stewart’s description of the land and the character of the people and their ways were very evocative as always. The book is lighter than some of her books in which the lead characters are a little more mature, but none beat this one for charm.

November 5, 2021