Cold Chill of Coptos - a Beagle Gothic

This is the first Gothic novel I've read by author Kay Ashby.  I could find next to nothing about this author online, other than the fact that she wrote what appears to be five Gothics between 1972 and 1976.  Of those books, this one and Climb a Dark Cliff seem to be her most popular ones.  I found one site that referenced Ashby as "one of my pseudonymous authors who wrote atmospheric Gothic paperbacks during the boom of the late 1960s and early 1970s," but there is nothing to verify this was a pseudonym.  In fact, the copyright page of this book would seem to indicate otherwise, as the copyright is 1974 by Kay Ashby, and further down that same page, it indicates this edition of the book was published "by arrangement with the author and the author's agent, Larry Sternig Literary Agency."  Surprisingly, the agency still exists today as Sternig & Byrne Literary Agency (Larry Sternig having taken on Jack Byrne as a full partner in 1995, just four years before Sternig's death).

 

Cold Chill of Coptos is not a historical Gothic, but is set in the current time period of when it was published (the mid-1970s).  Janelle ("Jan") Sheridan is summoned by her mother to the isolated house of her ex-fiance to celebrate her cousin Carla's birthday.  Jan is none-too-thrilled about the call, and although she has no desire to go, she cannot disobey her mother's command.  The question is, as the tagline on the cover reads, "[w]as her summons to the isolated house a sentence of death?"  It is obvious from the start there is tension in the family.  Jan's mother insists she refer to her by her given name of Hester and not by "Mom" or "Mother."  She also has always doted more on her cousin Carla than her own daughter since the avalanche that claimed the lives of Jan's father and Carla's parents all those years ago.  While not jealous, per se, Jan is obviously not happy that Carla always seems to get special treatment and gets whatever she wants - including Jan's fiance, who left her for her cousin.  So, with some trepidation, Jan heads for the desert home of Brian Ward, which can only be reached by private plane, as there are no roads that lead to the place.

 

In some ways, Ashby's writing reminds me much of the old Nancy Drew mysteries, where every chapter ends with either a physical danger as a cliffhanger or an emotional cliffhanger.  Jan, from the moment she arrives at Coptos, is plagued with dangers and suspicions.  From the shower filled with crawling, deadly scorpions (p. 23), to getting lost in the rock mazes out in the desert (p. 43), to being left alone in a ghost town with a fierce storm blowing through (p. 60), to having a large boulder nearly crush her, killing her horse (p. 72), to being tricked into a dark and dangerous cavern, where she is locked in (p. 109), Jan finds her life constantly being threatened.  While she knows someone is trying to kill her, everyone at Coptos discounts her concerns, Hester telling her she is being melodramatic.

 

Ashby provides the reader with plenty of suspects when it come to the question of who wants to do away with Jan Sheridan.  The obvious suspect is Hester, as she is the one who showed Jan to the bedroom with the deadly scorpions; she is the one who tells Jan it is safe to take a walk alone in the desert; she is the one who tells the others Jan is in the truck when they are leaving the ghost town due to the storm; and she is the one who suggests to Jan the missing young boy, Peter, could be down in the cavern.  But why would a mother want to kill her own daughter?  Hayden Hays is the designer who has come to Coptos to help Brian refurbish the great house and who is demanding Jan marry him.  Is he willing to kill her if he can't have her?  And why is Hester paying him large sums of money?  Philip John Wests a/k/a "Far" West is the pilot that takes Jan and Hayden out to Coptos and does errands for Hester and Brian.  Is his interest in Jan simply for her money, or does he have more sinister intentions?  There is also Carla, Jan's own cousin.  She knows Jan is going to inherit millions from her father's estate, and if Jan dies before the estate settles, the money will go to her and Hester.  Will she risk everything to get Jan out of the way so she can inherit the fortune?  And last, but not least, is Jan's ex-fiance, Brian.  Does he regret walking away from an heiress, and is he willing to kill so that his current fiance will get the money instead?

 

For those wondering, Coptos was a major ancient Egyptian city on the east bank of the Nile.  It was a primary cult center for the Egyptian fertility god, Min (who is mentioned a couple of times in this book), and later Isis, and it was also the capital of the fifth, or Coptite, nome of Upper Egypt.  The city was also a major trade center, since it was located at the crossroad between the Nile Valley and the Eastern Desert routes to the Red Sea.  Today, the archaeological remains of the city sit beneath the modern market town of Qift.  In addition to this Egyptian history used in the book, Ashby also includes some German history, with one of the rooms in Copots being painted to resemble the eastern hall of Schloss WeiBenstein in Pommersflden, Germany, in which the artist Giovanni Marchini painted an illusion that depicts painted columns flanking a collapsing entryway (p. 27).  Ashby also quotes the English poet, Andrew Marvell, using a stanza from one of his poems as an inscription on an antique lectern (p. 31).

 

The cover art is provided by Walter Popp (1920-2002), who started out as a freelance artist for pulp magazines, before moving on to painting covers for true crime magazines and men's adventure magazines.  It wasn't until later in his career that he collaborated with his wife, Marie, on book covers for Gothic romance novels.  This particular cover features a generic scene, of sorts, with a woman who I assuming is meant to be Jan in her nightown, running away from a house back in the distance (not at all the way Coptos is described in the book),  At least the land is depicted as a desert, with the obvious cacti and prickly bushes scattered about.  There is no scene in the book where Jan is running outside at night in her nightgown.  One has to wonder if the publisher gave the artists any specifics when commissioning cover art, or if the artists were just given very general facts and told to create an image with a woman running from a house.  Don't get me wrong, the art is gorgeous to look at, but it does not accurately depict anything from the story at all.

While the story is somewhat typical fare for a Gothic, I will admit to enjoying the Nancy Drew feel to the whole thing.  Jan has to be suspicious of everyone, and the final chase from the dark caverns, through the desert rocks, and ultimately up the precarious ledge that leads to the balcony outside Jan's room at the house is intense, with Ashby being very careful not to reveal the identity of her pursuer until the last possible moment - rocking Jan's world with some surprising revelations that change more than one relationship in the story. The ending alone makes the book worth reading. 

 

RATING:  8 leather-bound books next to candle stubs out of 10 for placing the story in a not-so-typical Gothic setting, which opens the door for all kinds of unique dangers to our young heroine.

A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery, Book 9 - Death Sets Sail

It has been just a little over a year since I read the last Wells & Wong a/k/a Murder Most Unladylike mystery, and I hesitated starting this book.  It is the ninth book in the series, but it is also the LAST book in the series.  (sigh)  I miss the days of continuing, ongoing series, such as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys (although can I really include the Hardy Boys, since they have not had a new book published in nearly three years now?).  It seems today's "series" are not really series at all - they are more like mini-series.  Most end after only three or four books, with very few making it to nine books, like this one.  (The only one currently being published that I can think of that has outlasted this one is the Friday Barnes series, which is up to book 13, I believe.)  But, I knew I had to read it sooner or later, so now was as good a time as any.

 

Death Sets Sail finds our two favorite young sleuths - Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong - suffering through the latest year at school, but with absolutely no mystery to solve.  While this is not the usual way these books start, the last sentence of Chapter 1 definitely gave me pause - and started me reading this book faster than any of the others I've read in the past.  After all, all of Hazel's talk about delaying in writing this book (the stories are mostly told through Hazel's point of view, as she writes down the adventures of The Detective Society in her casebook) had me wondering, but it was not until that last sentence that I realized this book truly was going to be the end in more than one way.  I mean, let's be serious, how many meanings can there be to the line, "Perhaps that way I can bring Daisy back to life."

 

Wait, what?!?! These are only fifteen-year old girls.  Surely, there is no way the author, Robin Stevens, was going to kill of one of her main characters in the final book in the series.  She wouldn't do that.  Would she?  The only way to find out was to read the book, and read I did!  From their long, uneventful days at Deepdean, to the invitation from the classmate, Amina El Maghrabi, to join her on a trip to Egypt to visit her family, to the long-last resignation of Hazel's father to the fact that his daughter truly is a detective, to the reuniting with Alexander Aracady and George Mukherjee of the Junior Pinkertons, to that fateful cruise down the Nile River where the girls, along with Mr. Wong and Hazel's two younger sisers (May and Rose), the Junior Pinkertons, and the very unusual Breath of Life Society all become embroiled in a murder mystery worthy of Agatha Christie herself (I mean, c'mon, surely you get the reference already - Death on the Nile?).  Right after Daisy, Hazel, Amina, Alexander, and George witness the most unusual meeting of the Breath of Life Society (a group of individuals, mostly British, who believe they are reincarnations of Egyptian pharoahs), a dead body turns up the next morning - with a sleepwalker standing over the body, covered in blood, crying out that she murdered her own mother!  Makes for a nice, easy case, right?  Wrong!

 

The cruise ship is simply full of suspects, all of them members of the Breath of Life Society - the question is, which one of them killed Theodora Miller, who believes she is the reincarnation of Hatshepsut (the sixth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, being the second woman to rule in her own right).  Was it really her sleepwalking daughter, Hephzibah (Heppy), who was treated like dirt by all of the members of the Society, including her own mother?  Or was it Daniel Miller, her son who blames her for the death of his friend Joshua some years before?  Could it have been Ida Doggett, who believes herself to be the reincarnation of Cleopatra and resents Theodora's control of the Society?  Or maybe it was Rhiannon Bartleby, whose nervousness and forgetfulness relates back to the death of Daniel's friend all those years ago?  Would Narcissus DeWitt, who believed himself the reincarnation of Thutmose III, murder Theodora in order to gain control of the Society's funds?  All of them had motive, and as the girls conduct their investigation, all of them had the opportunity and the means.  What begins as an open and shut case for the captain of the ship is not so "open and shut" as it appears, and Daisy and Hazel quickly discover that the plot to rid the Society of its pretentious leader is much more complex and devious than anyone suspects.

 

The girls get some unexpected help from Hazel's youngest sister, May, who manages to sneak away from her father's watchful eye time and time again, and providing the young detectives with some major clues that help them narrow down the list of suspects.  They also receive their usual help from the young Pinkertons, with Hazel's attraction to Alexander growing stronger by the day.  And even Amina manages to make herself useful, although Hazel can't help but notice the looks that keep passing between Daisy and Amina, and she wonders if perhaps Daisy will ever realize the feelings the Egyptian girl has for her.  It all leads up to a rather dramatic and very violent climactic confrontation, when the killer is revealed, grabs May and threatens to drop her overboard into the churning paddle wheel, and one young person's valiant sacrifice to save May's life and stop a killer from killing again...

 

But, wait!  That's not the end!  Hazel manages to provide readers with a bit of an epilogue, with a couple of surprises - some expected, some hoped for, and some not expected at all!  But it seems that while this book series may have reached its conclusion, the Detective Society will live on!   (And if you really want a taste of that, checkout Steven's sort-of-sequel series, The Ministry of Unladylike Activity, which follows an older May Wong on her own series of adventures, solving mysteries and stopping crimes!)

 

While not exactly the ending I would have liked for Hazel and Daisy, this book was without a doubt a superb read, and honestly, it is in full keeping with the growing characters of Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells, and Stevens gives the series a send-off that is worthy of the Wells and Wong' Detective Society.

 

RATING:  10  pieces of wire used as lock picks out of 10 for saving the very best Wells and Wong mystery for last, and giving readers an emotional send-off that makes us realize just how much we love these characters! 

Short Lived Comics Series #31 - Little Archie Mystery (Archie Series)

There is a story behind how I came to possess these comic books, since I am not really an Archie Comics fan. My mom grew up reading and loving Archie comics, but I have never been much of a fan, the humor in these books simply not my cup of tea.  However, I did learn to appreciate their "Red Circle" cast of heroes (such as The Shield, Jaguar, The Fly, Black Hood, etc.), and in recent years, I have discovered current versions of Young Dr. Masters (who had a two-issue series published by Archie many decades ago) and Fran Frazer, a female photographer/reporter/detective who had a regular feature in Top Notch Comics back in the early 1940s.  Well, being a mystery fan, when I discovered a cartoon on one of our streaming networks titled Archie's Weird Mysteries, I was curious. The cartoon was rather kooky, and when I looked it up online, I discovered there was also a comic book series that evolved from Archie's Weird Mysteries to simply Archie's Mysteries. Thus, it was while I was looking for issues of those comics while vacationing in Kentucky earlier this year that I chanced upon the second issue of this series...

 

Little Archie Mystery is a two-issue series published by Archie Comic Publications, Inc. back in 1963 (featuring cover dates of August and October).  This was apparently a spinoff of the Little Archie series that had begun publication back in 1956 (which a previous spinoff titled Little Archie in Animal Land having been published from 1957-58).  Both the scripts and the art for these two issues were provided by Bob Bolling, who was the original designer of the Little Archie characters, as well as the writer and artist for the regular series when it began.  Bolling stays with the Little Archie universe of titles until 1965, when he was replaced by Dexter Taylor, while Bolling was moved up to some of the regular Archie Comics titles.  Bolling's art style for these two issues strays a it from the comical appearance of the regular Archie Comics characters - although Little Archie himself is drawn in a similar appearance to his teenage self, the rest of the cast and the backgrounds have a more realistic comic book feel to them.  Perhaps it was because of the mystery element to the stories, or perhaps the series was aimed at a more serious audience than the typical Archie Comics.

 

It's actually a shame the series only lasted two issues - both issues offered up some good stories, with fun mysteries mixed with just a touch of humor (after all, this is an Archie comic).  The only thing I felt was missing from the two stories was Archie's supporting cast (i.e., Veronica, Betty, Jughead, etc.); instead, Little Archie interacts only with adults in both tales, making it a bit awkward that an elementary school age child would be accepted and permitted to tag along with adults as they investigate crimes in the city!  Maybe if the series had continued, we might have eventually seen Little Betty or Little Veronica show up - but, as it stand, we only get these two mysteries, of which Archie was not truly the main "detective" solving the case.

 

In issue one, we get the "Egyptian Goddess Mystery," which finds Little Archie teaming up with Peggy Drake, a wanna-be detective who has "taken a correspondence course in criminology" and has a diploma to prove it (p. 2)!  There have been a series of bank robberies in town, and Peggy is determined to find the crooks and stop them (with Little Archie tagging along).  Readers are introduced to Chic Cooper (any relation to Betty??), who is Peggy's somewhat boyfriend that she mainly uses as a driver to take her where she needs to go to investigate her cases.  We also meet Police Captain O'Brien, who refuses to listen when Peggy tells him she's determined the criminal mastermind behind all of the robberies is a woman.  As the story progresses, we learn that old Professor Hadley is working on a special project with two assistants - but his house and his project have been overtaken by a mad woman who thinks herself to be an Egyptian goddess, hoping to restore her jewels and great fortune by stealing it from others.  Of course, Peggy interferes with their plans, and Little Archie manages to bring Chic there in the nick of time to save her and the Professor and stop the criminal from escaping in their boat (Little Archie actually drives Chic's delivery truck off the wharf and into the boat, sinking it, the treasures, and the criminals!  How he was ever able to reach the gas pedal - well, that's a question that will probably never be answered...)

 

In the second and final issue, we read about "The Strange Case of the Mystery Map, with a cover that is basically repeated on the first splash page when you open the book.  Readers are given a brief hint of things to come by the announcement that the home of Caleb Warfield is the only home in all of Riverdale that does not subscribe to and receive the Riverdale Record each morning.  The scene then quickly shifts to an antique store that is about to be robbed.  An elderly woman is purchasing an old diary, and when the thieves break in, Little Archie happens to be watching when the old woman beats up the two criminals, sending them running off down the street.  Little Archie happens to be hanging out with Jimmy Lee (hmmm, makes me think of Jimmy Lee Holt from General Hospital, but this was well before that character made his first appearance on the show...), who works for the Riverdale Record and wants to do a story on the old woman's amazing feat.  She refuses, and when Jimmy and Little Archie follow her, hoping to convince her to give him a story, she shakes them in a very unusual way - by turning into a young woman!  Jimmy pitches a story about the woman to Parker Penbinder, the editor of the Riverdale Record, but it's a no go. While readers learn that the woman is actually the niece of Caleb Warfield, who wanted the diary because it belonged to an old relative and reveals the whereabouts of a family treasure, poor Jimmy is determined to learn the woman's secret (with Little Archie tagging along, of course).  The mystery culminates during the town's Civil War re-enactment, when Caleb and his niece locate the missing map (gee - an old diary, a missing map - sounds rather familiar, doesn't it?) and Jimmy and Little Archie locate them!  It turns out the map reveals the family treasure is actually in New York City - under the Empire State Building!  The final panel shows Caleb Warfield sneaking off to the train station with the final words, "The End?"

 

Unfortunately for us, that was the end, and we'll never know if Caleb Warfield did find the treasure in New York, where the map showed it to be, and whether he kept his promise to donate whatever treasure her found to the town of Riverdale,  That is a Little Archie Mystery that will forever remain unsolved...

 

Even with the small amount of participation of Little Archie in the actual mystery-solving process, both issues were pretty enjoyable.  Unlike most of the Archie Comics, both issues featured full-length stories (although, the first issue did include a four-page story at the end entitled "A Love Story," in which Little Archie learns a lesson on how much more love can accomplish than yelling and screaming).  And since both issues featured entirely separate casts of characters, there is no actual continuity between them.  But that is okay, because they are simply fun reads, and after all, isn't that what an Archie comic is supposed to be?

 

It would have been interesting to see the characters of Peggy Drake and Jimmy Lee used more in the Archie universe - although I did discover that the Riverdale television show had a character named Jillian Drake, who was an ATF Agent - maybe she was inspired by Peggy Drake?  Jimmy Lee, unfortunately, never appeared again and had no characters appear with a similar name.

 

Once I manage to track down all of the issues of Archie's Weird Mysteries / Archie's Mysteries, then we'll find out just how that more modern series compares to this!

 

RATING:   9 maps hidden in a bottle out of 10 for fun and creative mysteries that make for a very enjoyable read!

Barbie Lane and the Mystery of the Egyptian Museum - a Triple Nickle Book (No. 5)

This is a book that I had been searching for high and low for a number of years.  I honestly cannot recall when I first stumbled across this, but I think it was when I was doing a search on Amazon for "Barbie" and "mystery" to find some of the old Random House books published about Barbie (the doll) solving mysteries.  I had never seen this before and knew nothing about it, but the title and cover art caught my interest.  Of course, at the time, the book was listed as "unavailable" on Amazon, so I started expanding my search to eBay, Abe, etsy, and other sites.  I later learned from some of the online book collecting groups to which I belong that these Triple Nickle Books are a sought-after item and not easily found.  Apparently the publisher also put out some Power Boys novels in this format, as well as books about Wild Bill Hickok and Davy Crockett.  Well, after several years of combing through auction sites and scouring through used bookstores, I finally found a copy on eBay last year and was able to get it at an unbelievably great price!

Barbie Lane and the Mystery of the Egyptian Museum is the first (and only!) mystery in the Barbie Lane series.  The book identifies "Lucy Carlton" as the author, but I'm guessing that is likely a pseudonym.  I'm unable to find any information about an author by this name, even connected with this book, and since the Powers Boys stories published by Triple Nickel (which, apparently, are unrelated to the later Powers Boys series published by Whitman) were also written under a pseudonym, this seems a likely assumption.  The story itself is 63 pages in length, with twelve chapters with an illustration at the head of each chapter and a few small illustrations scattered throughout the story. The chapters are relatively short, but the pages are formatted with two-columns, like you will find in magazines.  As such, the story moves at a pretty quick pace, and similar to the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and other children's series books of that time, each chapter ends with a cliffhanger to encourage the reader to keep on reading and find out what happens next.

Barbie Lane is a sixteen-year old redhead whose father, Richard Lane, is a "celebrated freelance photographer" (p. 2).  The inside front cover introduces readers to the main character with the tagline: "Meet Barbie Lane!"  Describing her as "the most adventurous teen-ager you've ever known," the introduction explains that Mr. Lane "takes his brave daughter with him ... and the red-headed girl finds herself in the midst of more exciting mysteries than you could imagine."  Surrounding the introduction are a number of line drawings of Barbie's head, which in many instances are very reminiscent of the original Barbie doll (leaving one to wonder if the artist used the doll as a model of sorts, particularly considering the doll and this young sleuth share the same first name).  The illustrations are signed by "Mort Leav" (more on him below).

 

As the book opens, she and her best friend, Joan Webster, who is a year younger, are on a bus headed to Collins City to join Mr. Lane for a vacation.  Mr. Lane is actually there to photograph a new Egyptian exhibit set to open at the Collins City Museum of Art, and Barbie and Joan are anxious to see the exhibit.  As fate would have it, the bus has a slight mishap, and the girls find themselves in the small village of Milltown.  Visiting an antique shop, the girls run into Mr. Wilson, a fellow passenger on the bus - and this is where the strange events begin to take place.  A wiry, red-haired man comes storming out of the back, pushing his way past the girls, losing a button in the process (p. 5).  Then Mr. Wilson accuses Barbie of stealing his wallet, which is later discovered by the shop owner on the floor beneath an old spinning wheel (p. 7).  Because of this delay, the girls miss their bus and have to contact Mr. Lane to come get them.  When he picks them up, Mr. Wilson joins them on the ride to Collins City, as that is where he is heading.  The girls ask excitedly about the exhibit, and Mr. Lane reveals rather reluctantly that it may not open due to some trouble at the museum - which prompts Mr. Wilson to warn him about "the Curse of Rama-Khan!" (p. 10).

The mystery immediately ramps up, as the girls discover that certain artifacts have been stolen from the museum, despite the fact that the museum has been locked up tight, and only a few people have access, all of whom are thoroughly trustworthy.  The girls begin to observe mysterious events, such as Mr. Wilson pushing a veiled woman in a wheelchair; the red-haired man from the antique shop hanging around town; and strange shadows and noises in the museum.  When the girls get accidentally locked inside the museum overnight, they discover how the criminals have been getting in and out to steal the artifacts, and they also learn why the criminals have been vandalizing the left hands of various statues and mummies!  It's actually a fairly interesting tale, and the author throws in a couple of surprising twists (although careful readers will easily spot one of the villains pretty early on).  The author does have the villains manhandle the two girls rather roughly, putting them in some very precarious situations - but, as with any good sleuth, some pure luck and fortunate coincidences lead them to safety and a satisfaction resolution. 

The final page of the book (p. 64) is actually a letter column, similar to what you would find in old comic books or some magazines.  I was surprised to see this, particularly since the letters all refer to either Triple Nickel Books in general, or specifically to other books (such as the two Power Boys books).  Only one of the letter-writers is identified by age (15-years old), raising the question as to whether the other writers may have been adults, or they simply did not include their age when sending their letters.  Since the cover to this particular book has "No. 5" just below the title, it makes me believe this was the fifth Triple Nickel Book published, and that regardless of the main character in the story, the books were simply numbered in the order of their publication.  There is a Davy Crockett book, Danger from the Mountain, that is identified as No. 2, while another titled The Adventures of Davy Crockett has No. 1 on the cover.  I've been able to see the cover to The Life of Wild Bill Hickok, and it shows No. 3 on the cover.  Since I've never seen either of the Power Boys books, I can only assume one of them might be No. 4, and perhaps the other is No. 6. I did notice on the Davy Crockett and Wild Bill Hickok books, they are labeled "For Boys" on the cover, while this book is labeled "For Girls."  They were certainly making it clear the audience they were targeting for each story!

The inside back cover is an advertisement for all of the "Brand New Exciting Triple Nickel Books" available for purchase, including the two Davy Crockett stories, the Wild Bill Hickok tale, and the two Power Boys mysteries.  At the bottom is a preview of titles that were to be "Coming Soon!" - a second Barbie Lane mystery titled The Riddle of the Glowing Marble; a third Power Boys adventure, and a third Davy Crockett story.  I know the Barbie Lane book was never published, so I'm guessing the other two likely never saw publication either (although I could be wrong).  I have to wonder what that second Barbie Lane story would have been about, as I can't imagine a glowing marble making a very exciting mystery!

While the artist is not specifically given credit in the book, the illustrations are all signed by"Mort Leav."  This leads one to suspect that it is referring to Mortimer Leav (1916-2005), who drew comics back in the first half of the 20th Century (including Sally O'Neil, Policewoman stories for National Comics).  His history with comic books can be seen in the illustrations in this book, as the scenes depicted are either heavy on the action or scenes that find Barbie and Joan in some dangerous position.  The cover painting is not signed, so I have no way of knowing if Leav did the art for the cover, or simply for the interiors.

Triple Nickel books are very hard to come by.  Some research online reveals that the Triple Nickel line of books were published by Solomon & Gelman in the 1950s, and they were labeled as "Triple Nickel Books" because they only cost 15 cents.  The back cover to the book guaranteed the stories were "the finest in wholesome adventure novels for boys and girls," and even went so far as to set forth the members of an advisory board who allegedly supervised the writing and editing - a university dean, a director at the National Hospital for Speech Disorders, and consulting psychologist!  Apparently they wanted to make sure parents were fully satisfied that these stories were safe to read.  This could possibly stem from the fact that around this time, the mid-1950s, a psychiatrist by the name of Frederic Wertham was on a warpath against comic books, campaigning for the books to be censored, as he claimed the stories and art encouraged bad behavior in children, leading to juvenile delinquency.  A Congressional inquiry was even begun into the matter, which led to the formation of the Comics Code Authority, which would monitor and censor comics to ensure the material did not depict overt scenes of violence, sex, and other "harmful" things.  Perhaps by advertising the advisory board on the back of their books, Solomon & Gelman were hoping it would help sell the books!

 

Sadly, these pulp-style mysteries for juveniles have faded into obscurity, and while I finally saw a second copy of this sell on eBay recently, they are definitely few and far between.  I did enjoy the story and only wish more had been produced.  

 

RATING:  9 old abandoned sewer tunnels out of 10 for a fast-paced, fun mystery and a great new sleuth that sadly didn't get to experience any more adventures!

Agatha, Girl of Mystery #1 - The Curse of the Pharaoh

Okay, I suppose it was time to finally getting around to reading this series. I bought this book back in 2013, when it was first published here in the States (yes, this is another foreign series that has been republished here in the United States under a different title, similar to the Murder Most Ladylike series that was relabeled the Wells & Wong Mysteries here).  I continue to buy all ten books in this series as they were published, but I never got around the reading them.  Well, I guess a decade of waiting is long enough, so time to read them!  Originally published in France as the Agatha Mistery series, "Agatha, Girl of Mystery" was originally advertised as an exciting new girl detective "with the smarts of Nancy Drew and the charm of Eloise" (from the back cover of this first book).  Obviously, this tagline had me curious - and the fact that each book is set in a different locale around the world (similar to the "Greetings from Somewhere" series I previously read) convinced me to pick up the series.

The Curse of the Pharaoh introduces readers to twelve-year old Agatha Mistery, daughter of globe-trotting parents who think nothing of leaving their pre-teen child in the care of the family's trusted butler, Chandler.  Although barely in middle school, young Agatha already knows she wants to be a successful mystery writer when she grows up (hmmmm, does the name "Agatha" ring any bells?), so she is always ready to turn anything into a mystery.  A mysterious package she receives from her traveling parents would seem to indicate a mystery, but it's actually her cousin, Dashiell Mistery (yet another familiar mystery name, eh?), a fourteen-year old slacker who is studying at the Eye International Detective Academy, who brings her a mystery to solve!  It seems the school has given him a project that he must complete in three days or he will fail the course - so, needless to say, he calls on Agatha to help him solve the case.

What is the case, you ask?  Well, our intrepid sleuths must find out who stole an ancient tablet from an archaeological site, recover the tablet so the archaeologists can locate the missing tomb, and capture the thieves.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Oh, there is one more thing.  They are warned to beware of Tutankhamen's curse!

The story is simple and fun, and the characters are a hoot.  Agatha is endearing, Dash is somewhat annoying, Chandler is the ever-loyal one, Aunt Patricia is fun-loving, and Watson (if you don't recognize that one, why are you reading mysteries?), Agatha's unusually quiet and calm cat who travels with her everywhere she goes, is ... well, he's just sort of there.  More often than not, the reader will not even remember he is there.  The three professors the kids meet when visiting the dig site in Egypt are somewhat stereotypical - each as different from the other as could possibly be.  There's also a fourth man at the site, a local man, who does not quite fit in with the rest.  Agatha quickly discerns that the tablet was not taken by someone outside the dig, and she puts a plan in motion to have the culprit reveal himself, one that, quite frankly, is worthy of the queen of crime herself (you know who I'm talking about here...after all, she shares the same name as our title character here!).

At only 133 pages, with larger font and plenty of beautiful illustrations by Stefano Turconi, the book is a pretty easy read. However, even though it is aimed at young readers, it is still entertaining and has a pretty well-thought-out plot.  If this first book is any indication of what the rest of the series is like, then I have no doubt I'm in from some great reading!

RATING:  8 ice cream pop eating professors out of 10 for a great start to a new little series for young readers with a very likeable amateur sleuth!