Penny Parker Mystery Stories No. 11 - Hoofprints on the Turnpike

Okay, we have reached the 11th book in the Penny Parker series, and this one definitely takes a step to the side from all of the stories thus far.  I have been thoroughly enjoying the series, and most of the mysteries have been really good (a few off beat, and a few not great, but still good).  This one, however, strays into some strange territory, and I'm not sure if Mildred Wirt intended it that way, or she was just rushed when writing the story.  The theme of the story is definitely lifted straight out of Washington Irving's short story, with Wirt even referencing the story a number of times throughout this book.  The story also contains the most Gothic elements of any of her Penny Parker mysteries up until this point.  But the odd thing about the story is that the mystery seems to not be the main focus of the story - rather, it's the impending flood that could devastate the valley that is the major plot point!

Hoofbeats on the Turnpike is set in Hobostein County, in the Red River Valley.  Penny is lured to visit the area when an elderly man comes into the Riverview Star to place an ad, offering for sale an old spinning wheel, an ancient loom, and a set of wool carders (p. 5).  But it's his story to Penny about the $500 reward for any information that leads to the capture of a Headless Horseman that has been haunting his hometown that captures her attention.  Unable to look the other way when she is presented with a mystery, Penny drags Louise down to Red River Valley to find out what she can and hopefully earn that $500 (since she is "stony broke" and will not get her allowance for another ten days! [p. 1]).  Anyone who knows the story of the Headless Horseman can probably see where this is going...

Upon arriving in the Valley, Penny and Louise are surprised at what they learn about the folk who live there.  Silas Malcom, the old man who told Penny the story, is very cryptic about the Headless Horseman, and Penny quickly realizes he purposefully told her the story to get her there.  John Burmaster is a wealthy man who bought up nearly all of the local land, displacing many folks, and built himself a large estate to resemble Sleepy Hollow from the story - including a long bridge leading up to the house, just as it was described in Irving's story (p. 22).  Mrs. Lear is an old woman who Penny and Louise first mistake for a witch (for the first time they see her, she is standing over a cauldron outside, stirring something slowly), and although she welcomes the girls into her home to stay while they are visiting, it is obvious she is up to something.  Joe Quigley is the station agent in town, and while he's very nice, he also seems to be harboring some secret when it comes to the Headless Horseman tale.  Byron Schultz, the editor of the Hobostein Weekly, will not even discuss the Headless Horseman to the girls; rather, he is more focused on Burmaster's refusal to help the town fund repairs to the local dam, which he claims is about ready to burst - and if it does, the entire valley will be washed away!

While Wirt somewhat keeps the girls on the track of the "Galloping Hessian" (p. 37), there is just as much talk about the weaking dam and the possibility of a flood.  In fact, the horseman mystery is resolved by chapter twenty, and Wirt spends the last five chapters on the book focused solely on the devastation caused when the dam breaks.  The whole scenario reminds me a lot of the dam that breaks in the first Judy Bolton mystery, The Vanishing Shadow, published in 1932, which also destroyed a town (and that flood was based upon a real event that happened in Pennsylvania).  This Penny Parker book was published in 1944, and just one year prior (which may have been when Wirt was writing the story), there were two dams in Germany that were destroyed, causing considerable damage with flooding and destruction during the war (WW II), leaving one to wonder if those stories might have inspired Wirt's inclusion of the flood into this book.  I was surprised at how graphic Wirt became with her descriptions of the destruction done by the flood waters, and the references to lost lives (although some lives thought lost miraculously turn up alive before the story ends).  The lack of communication due to downed telephone and telegraph lines, the desperation of the town folk in finding food and shelter, the complete loss of homes and livelihoods - it is a somewhat depressing read, which I wonder wasn't too strong for young readers at the time.

An interesting part of this story is Penny's determination to get a story for her father at any cost, even pushing aside her own safety.  She continually uses the excuse of the possibility of a good story to keep returning to Red Valley, and when the flood hits, she not only acts quickly to save a mother and her children from the rushing flood waters (p. 163), but she swims across the swiftly moving water to get into the train station and send off a wire to her father, telling him what has happened (p. 173).  He asks her to giving a running report, but when all the lines go down, she feels she has failed him - yet, she continues to work for the story, and eventually convinces the manager of the local telephone company to let her be one of the first to get out her story to her father when the lines are restored (p. 197).  Wirt even goes into considerable detail about the use of a Lyle Gun to shoot the wire across an expanse of flood waters (p. 194), as well as the portable wire photo equipment she and Salt Sommers use to get photos Penny has taken to her father for print (p. 208).  Thankfully, Wirt does touch upon Penny's conflicted feelings about the loss all of these people have suffered versus the need to tell the story and get it out there for the world to see.  Wirt was good enough to show readers that Penny was not completely heartless - she had to get the story, yes, but her heart went out to the people who had lost so much.

A very good friend happens to have a copy of Wirt's outline for this book, and he let me read the outline - I was surprised to see that the old man who brought the ad into the Star originally held a clipping about the Headless Horseman from a newspaper called the Miami County News.  This took me aback, as Miami is right here in Florida, where I live.  Perhaps her thought had originally been to set the tale in Florida, as her use of "Huntley Lake" for the body of water being held back by the dam happens to coincide with Lake Huntley, a mid-size lake located in Lake Placid, Florida!  This was obviously changed at some point, as Wirt also used the town of Delta in her story, and Delta is a city just west of Toledo (where Wirt was living at the time this book was written and published).

Overall, it was a good read, but there are definitely some questionable elements to the story, such as how do Penny and Louise have the money for all of this traveling, when the book starts off by telling readers Penny is "stony broke"?  And don't these girls ever bathe?  No matter how dirty they get, there are only a couple of references to "rinsing off" in basins of water, never actually taking a bath or showering!  And when Penny buys a camera from one of the towns folk in order to take pictures for her father, she tells him she has no money, but her father will send him the money later - and he says, "you look honest - I'll take a chance" (p. 201).  Seriously, who does that with a total stranger, particularly in a situation like this!  I suppose when reading fiction like this, there has to be a level of suspension of disbelief, so I did not let any of these things take away from my enjoyment of the mystery!

 

There's a lot more that could be said about this book, but it's probably best not to spoil the fun.  And with only six books left in the series to read ... can't wait to see what Wirt has in store next!

RATING:  9 stolen deeds out of 10 for keeping each mystery different, not just in title, but in concept and content.

Kit and the Mystery Man - a Children's Press Mystery

This was another of the books I picked up while in Ireland earlier this year.  Sadly, I did not find very many series books at all while there, but I did manage to pick up a few one-off mysteries that, based on the cover art, seemed pretty cool.  The first one I read, The Three Spaniards, wasn't too bad at all (The Three Spaniards), so I went into this one hoping it would be just as good, if not better.  Of course, being a completely different author, I couldn't be too sure.  But, the premise sounded intriguing and the cover provided a hint of what was to come (a young boy watching a mysterious man seeming to sneak out of a building...), and, well, let's just say, I was not disappointed.

Kit and the Mystery Man is the story of Kit Pugh, formally Christopher Marlin Pugh. Kit's backstory is a bit convoluted, and it actually took me a couple of times reading that first chapter to really get it straight (this is due mostly to the author's style of writing - almost a stream of consciousness in some places, where she has Kit daydreaming, wondering off  on tangents, while at the same time trying to maintain a third-person point-of-view to describe his life).  It seems Kit's parents are both gone, and he lives with one of his three aunts in Whitebay (which I had first assumed was in England, but after researching online have to wonder if it isn't a reference to Ireland, since I found not Whitebay in England but I did find a White Bay in the County Cork in Ireland - which, of course, would be fitting, considering that is exactly where I was when I bought this book!). So, Kit helps out his Aunt Carrie with her boarding house while his cousins Marguerite (Midge) and Madeleine (Maddy) live with his other aunt, Mrs. Morgan, in their hotel, the Royal Dragon, closer to town.  His third aunt is barely mentioned in the story.  Anyway, Kit is a daydreamer and is consistently forgetting things and getting sidetracked, much to Aunt Carrie's chagrin.  Until he meets Judy Somers...

Judy is the daughter of a professor who is a permanent resident at the Royal Dragon - but he is so wrapped up in whatever it is he does (it's never mentioned) that Judy finds herself quite alone.  She strikes up an awkward friendship with Kit, as the two of them will be traveling together every day to Langley, which is a nearby city where they attend school (now I did not find a Langley in Ireland, but I did find one in England - so again, I can't quite place where this story takes place!).  It is on one of these days that Kit happens across a painting in an old antique shop, one that captures his full attention.  Through a series of events, the owner of the shop gifts the painting to Kit only moments before a strange man shows up in the shop desperate to buy the painting.  The owner refuses to sell it, having given it to Kit, and the enraged man leaves.  Of course, as any mystery-reading fan will guess, this isn't the last Kit and Judy see of this man!

After a somewhat rocky start in the first couple of chapters, where the author seems to be grappling with how to introduce the characters, the settings, and the situations, once Kit get a hold of that painting, the story really picks up steam.  One of Aunt Carrie's boarders, a man by the name of Joe Tree who seems to have no job, no means of support, yet lives carefree and has no problems meeting his expenses, also befriends Kit and becomes instrumental in helping Kit with some of the decisions he has to make throughout the story.  Between Joe and Judy, they not only give the young man some backbone, but also help him solve the mystery involving the painting.  As it turns out, the painting could potentially by the fourth of four paintings by a very famous and elusive artist who disappeared years ago.  One collector from the States has three of the four and has been searching for years to find that fourth one.  When Kit's painting is stolen, he and Judy are determined to find the man they believe that stole it - but when they do track it down, they are in for some major surprises (although, quite honestly, they were not overly surprising to me as the reader - there are enough hints in the story to figure out exactly what is going on, whether the painting is real or not, and what happened to the artist).

A couple of things I found to be different about this book:  one is that despite being 190 pages in length, there are only nine chapters!  Each chapter is quite lengthy, so the reader is not left with the standard "cliffhangers" at the end of every chapter like you would read in the series books published in the States.  Two is that the mystery is wrapped up by the end of chapter eight, so that the entirety of chapter nine is more or less an epilogue, but one that comes with a very pleasant surprise for Kit (and one that left me feeling very happy for the young man).  Despite these differences, I did enjoy the story (once I got past those first couple of chapters) and grew to like the main characters.

 

With regard to the location of the story, since there is mention of train rides to London, I'm ultimately guessing the story takes place in England, and that the small towns are simply fictional towns made up by the author.   And speaking of the author, I've never heard of the author, Mollie Chappell, although some searching online revealed that this author wrote quite a number of books, some for young adults and others for adults, including romance novels.  I liked this one enough that I may try and track down some of her other books...

RATING:  7 airline tickets from London to New York out of 10 for a unique mystery with a different kind of protagonist!

Seven Seas Comics - a PS Artbooks Collection

PS Artbooks has been collecting a lot of great Golden Age stuff for a while.  I have the Phantom Lady books they put out, and I've also recently bought the Senorita Rio books they have published.  Happened across this book in an issue of Previews some months back, and even though it is a "softee" (paperback) collection (I have only gotten all hardcover to this point), I ordered it, because I had never heard of the comic, nor of its lead character, "South Sea Girl."  Being a fan of female-led comics, I obviously could not pass up this one.  But I quickly discovered, once I started reading it, that Seven Seas Comics had a lot more than just "South Sea Girl" to offer!

Unfortunately, this softee collection did not have any introduction or other preface that provides any information about the comics, so I was forced to go online and find out what I could about Seven Seas Comics.  This six-issue series was published by Universal Phoenix Features (owned by Samuel "Jerry" Iger) and ran from 1946 to 1947.  The comic featured stories by some rather big named Golden Age greats, such as Matt Baker, Thorne Stevenson, and others, and the first two issues featured eight stories, including a prose story, and a "Salty Stuff" page that gave readers info on nautical knowledge, from the use of flags for communication among ships to how to tie various knots to the meaning of different colored lights, etc.  By issue three, however, the number of stories were reduced, and by the end of the series, there were just five stories in each issue. However, several of the regular features continued throughout the series, including my two favorites: "South Sea Girl" and "Tugboat Tessie."

"South Sea Girl" was originally drawn (and written?) by Matt Baker, a Golden Age artist who is probably best known for his work on Phantom Lady, when that character was taken over to Fox Comics back in the '40s, as well as all of the Canteen Kate comics.  It has been alleged that South Sea Girl, whose name is Alani, was inspired by actress Dorothy Lamour, who starred in a number of South Sea Island films back in the late '30s and early '40s (see, South Sea Girl in Seven Seas Comics).  As stated in the introduction text box of that first issue, Alani is the ruler and protector of the Vanishing Isles, a small group of islands in the South Seas that is "shrouded by whispering mists" and, for the most part, hidden from the prying eyes of mankind.  Each story, Alani faces off against invaders - whether it be poachers, Hollywood executives, pirates, or even murderous criminals - and each time Alani proves to be more than any of these man (or women!) can handle.  The stories are relegated to the end of the first several issues, but clearly it must have been a hit with comic readers, because starting with the fourth issue, "South Sea Girl" became the lead story for those last three issues.  Although Matt Baker signs off on the first several stories, the final tales are credited to "Thorne Stevenson," and it seems there are conflicting thoughts from online sources, as some thing Stevenson is simply a pseudonym for Baker, while others indicate Stevenson is actually Manning Lee Stokes, who wrote the stories, while Baker continued to provide art, albeit uncredited.  I supposed at this late date, we will likely never know for sure...

"Tugboat Tessie" was something of a unique character (at least to me).  Tessie is a tough-as-nails, working woman who runs her own tugboat business with her daughter, Melody (who is the real beauty of the strip). Tessie is always vying for business against Bill Jetty, a veteran tug boat sailor who is always stealing her business.  The stories are humorous, as Jetty ultimately falls into trouble, and Tessie and Melody have to bail him out, ultimately scoring the job (and the pay that goes with it!).  What I find interesting is that Tessie has plenty of meat on her bones, is an older woman, is not pretty by any means - and yet, she is not only the lead character in the stories, but the hero of every story!  Melody, the beautiful blond daughter, is the bombshell all the boys are after, but she has no interest in any of them - her only interest is in helping her mother run a successful business and often times jumping into the water to save a man who has fallen overboard.  The stories definitely turn the tables on the standard "damsel in distress" trope, as these stories all feature MEN in distress!  They are all a joy to read, and they definitely made me chuckle more than once or twice.  The stories are credited to Lee Stoken, who I found online to actually be Manning Lee Stokes, who authored the stories, while Matt Baker provided the art.  Funny how the two features I liked most in this comics are authored and drawn by the same creators!

Other characters who appeared within the run are Captain Cutlass by "Jonathan Lee" (who, big surprise, turns out to actually be yet another pseudonym for Manning Lee Stokes), The Ol' Skipper by Ruth Roche under the name "Rod" Roche, Harbor Patrol by (you guessed it!) Manning Lee Stokes, and Sagas of the Seas: Authentic Adventures (which stories remain uncredited, although there is speculation that Robert Webb may have provided the art).  Of these, the Captain Cutlass and Harbor Patrol stories are very readable - the Cutlass tales about pirates on the high seas, while the Patrol tales are about the police working to keep the docks safe from criminals.  The Ol' Skipper is about a retired sailor who tells some pretty tall tales that usually result in some benefit to him or the person to whom he's sharing the story.  I wouldn't say they are spectacular, but they are cute for what they are.  The Sagas of the Seas are - well, in one word - boring!  I did not find any of them interesting in the least.  Then there are the comedy strips, "Tall Stories" (which later changed to "Tall Tales") and "Marty and the Mermaid," neither of which I really enjoyed.  I've never been much of a fan of "funny comics," so these stories I pretty much skipped.

What bothered me most about the collection, though, is the fact that issue 3 is not included.  There is no explanation or apparent reason why this collection only includes issues 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6.  They went to the trouble of reproducing not only the glossy paper for the covers, including the ads on the inside front cover and the inside and outside back covers, yet they left out an entire issue.  I do realize the stories are not serialized, so the missing issue does not mean I actually missed out on a part to an on-going serial; yet, it does mean I do not have the entire series, with is rather disappointing.  Perhaps PS Artbooks was unable to locate a complete copy of the issue for purposes of reproducing it, or perhaps there was something in the issue that was not yet in public domain, I honestly have no idea.  When I did a search for information on Seven Seas Comics online, I found a number of sites that listed individual issues, but found very few sites that provided more detailed information about the series as a whole.  One website (Seven Seas Comics) did give a bit of background for the creation and intention of the series, so that was something, at least.  

Overall, the five issues I read in this collection were worth the purchase.  It still amazes me how easily these creators of the Golden Age were able to tell complete stories in just 5 to 8 pages, while today's creators can't seem to complete a story in less than 4 to 6 issues!  It's a shame we didn't get more stories of South Seas Girl and Tugboat Tessie, but I suppose they were characters of their time, and there they shall forever remain.

RATING:  8 self-center Hollywood starlets out of 10 for good, clean comic stories that prove (to me, at least!) just how much better the stories and art of yester-year are compared to today's comics.

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!

The House of Happy Endings - a Memoir

This book has to have been the most difficult book I've ever read.  And I don't mean because of the writing itself, or because of the fact that it is a biography of sorts.  I'm not a fan of non-fiction, and I don't normally read biographies - but since this book is directly related to children's mystery series, and it was gifted to me by a loving friend, I opened it up and delved into the story of Howard Garis, his wife Lilian Garis, and their son, Roger Garis (who wrote countless children's mysteries in the first half of the last century).  My good friend, Geoffrey S. Lapin, knows the author of this book (the daughter of Roger and granddaughter of Howard and Lilian), and he has told me over the years that life in the Garis household was not as idealistic as those homes we read about in The Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, Baseball Joe, and so many other children's series written by these prolific authors.  So, I went into this knowing that it was not going to be a story of roses and sunshine.  I just did not realize the extent of the difficulties faced by the Garis family in their Massachusetts home...

House of Happy Endings is a memoir about a family of writers. This story of Roger Garis and his wife, Mabel, along with their three children - Leslie (the only daughter and the author of this book), Brooks, and Buddy (later to go by the name Dalton) - starts as the family moves to Amherst, Massachusetts in the late 1940s, into a magnificent new home known as "The Dell."  From all appearances, this was to be a house of new beginnings for the family. After an attempt at publishing a magazine, and then attempts at writing television scripts, the family welcomes Roger's parents, Howard and Lilian, into the house.  And, from a narrative sense, this is where things begin to change in the book - not just in the story itself, but in the whole tone of the book.  Of course, those first chapters were written in the perspective of what a young girl of five years old saw and felt - everything was new and exciting, and Leslie Garis was caught up in the thrill of being a part of her father's world of writing.  But with the arrival of Howard and Lilian Garis, that world changes.

This book is not an easy read.  It is not the story of a "happy-go-lucky" family where everything is just wonderful and everyone is always happy.  This book tells the story of a family with serious struggles ... of a writer who battled an undiagnosed illness that affected not only his own life, but the lives of all around him. It's the story of a young girl growing up in a home where she has to navigate the confusing and conflicting relationships between her grandmother and grandfather ... between her grandmother and father ... between her grandfather and father ... between her mother and father ... and between her father and herself.  The innocence of her childhood gets slowly stripped away as she gets older, until she reaches the point where she has to distance herself from all of the drama, and she faces her own guilt and her own struggles in order to make her own way in the world.

Don't get me wrong - there are some touching stories in the book.  The memories of Howard Garis being surrounded by children, always taking time to share Uncle Wiggly stories and bring joy into these youngsters lives.  The memories of the author and her father sharing some wonderful times, and her joy at being asked to help her grandfather develop endings for his stories (something her grandmother always did for him, but after she passed, he needed someone to fill that void). The memories of hiding in the dumbwaiter, spying on the family, playing "detective" in her own private place.  Despite all of the dysfunctional drama, the author still has some good memories of growing up.  I even enjoyed reading the numerous references the various children's series books authored by Howard, Lilian, and Roger.  There is also some very frank revelations about what it was like to work with and for the Stratemeyers back then.  But it's heartbreaking to read just how much those memories are overshadowed by the addictions and illnesses that seemed to take control of her father over the years.

And don't get me started on that grandmother.  The more the author describes her, the more I could see my own grandmother reflected in this woman.  Perhaps it was simply the way women of that era were brought up, or maybe it was simply bitterness developed over the years (as suggested by the author, her own grandmother may have been jealous of the fact her husband's writers were far more successful than her own), or maybe it was just a pure coincidence that both the author's grandmother and my own were so very critical of their own children, basically taking away any self-confidence they might have had and destroying any ambitions or successes they had.  I know the torture my own mother went through with the way her mother treated her, so it really hit home when I read how Lilian Garis treated her own son.  This made the ending of this book so much more harder for me to read and, quite honestly, caused me to break down in tears thinking of my own mother and her passing (thankfully, though, she had family at her side, unlike poor Roger Garis...).

I would definitely say this book is worth reading, but be warned - it's not for the faint of heart!

RATING:  9 unfinished plays out of 10 for revealing the not-so-happy side of a family of children's series authors and opening up about what it was like growing up in the Garis family.

The Pine Barrens Mystery - an Augusta Huiell Seaman mystery story

After reading my first mystery by author Augusta Huiell Seaman, I wasn't quite sure what to expect with this next book I found.  The first one seemed heavily steeped in historical references and was a mystery from the past, rather than the present.  But I had enjoyed it, and so I went into this book with relatively high expectations.  Having written more than 40 books for young readers, it's likely she's had some hits and misses over the course of her years of writing, but fortunately, the two books I have of hers are both hits!  Yes, this one turned out to be a winner as well, and, in fact, I liked this one more than the first one I read.

The Pine Barrens Mystery is set in New Jersey and follows the adventures of Roxanna Thatcher and her older brother, Christopher, as they head for the coast in hopes of finding a better climate for Christopher's health (he had been sick with pneumonia and developed a bad cough).  While their initial goal is Atlantic City, Christopher (affectionately referred to as "Chub") takes them on a side through the Pine Barrens, which he describes as "the queerest stretch of ground you've ever seen ... a patch of about fourteen square miles inland ... covered by [pine trees] so stunted that none of the trees are over five feet tall, most of them less" (pp. 4-5).  Since he is studying plant biology and chemistry of soils at Princeton, he intends to write his thesis about the land int that area.  Roxanna is reluctant at first, as she does not want to sidetrack her trip to Atlantic City, but she agrees - and when they arrive, Roxanna discovers it like being in another world - "I've never seen anything like it!" she exclaims (p. 9)  While Chub takes their dog, Pepper, off to explore and take some plant and soil samples, Roxanna explores an old, abandoned house nearby ... and while inside, she hears ominous footsteps overhead!  When she explores, no one is there, and thus, the mystery begins...

While the brother and sister do eventually go to Atlantic City, their stay is short lived, as Chub cannot take the sea air, and they end up returning to the Pine Barrens area to stay for their vacation.  In the very small town of Harwood, they take rooms at the home of Mrs. Kramer, whose thirteen year old daughter Alma reveals she was the one Alma heard in the house the previous day - she loves to explore the old mansion, but when Roxanna and her brother showed up, she snuck away to avoid being seen.  Despite the four year age difference in the girls, Roxanna and Alma strike up a rather good friendship, so while Chub focuses on his study of the Pine Barrens, Roxanna and Alma become determined to solve the mystery behind the old house that fascinates them both.  Alma reveals a hidden compartment in the fireplace upstairs, and she shares with Roxanna an old, tattered diary she found inside along with a "beautifully executed miniature painted on ivory set in a gold frame and studded all around with small but wonderfully perfct emeralds and diamonds" (p. 61).  Alma shares the history of the old house, such as she has learned from locals who have lived in the area for awhile - the house was built years ago by a man and his wife, believed to be from somewhere in Europe, before the town even really existed.  It seems the couple were happy for several years, but after the birth of their child, something happened, and one winter, the family disappeared, taking all of their belongings, and never returned.  No one knows what happened, and Alma was hoping the diary would shed some light, but it is written in another language. Roxanna recognizes the French writing, and ultimately has her brother (who is proficient in the language) interpret it for them!

The mystery may sound somewhat tame, but it is definitely anything but!  Seaman manages to squeeze in every possible Gothic trope imaginable to keep the story intriguing and forcing the reader to turn page after page to find out what happens next.  The mysterious disappearance of the original owners ... the old grave marker hidden under the tree near the house ... the scientific papers hidden somewhere on the estate that Chub is desperate to find for his thesis ... the strange old lady who lives alone in a shack in the woods, but who visits the house on a regular basis when no one is around ... the stormy night that leaves one of the siblings stranded away from the town ... the tattered old diary that holds cryptic clues to what really happened all those years ago ... and a case of mistaken identity that leads to the revelation of a lost fortune ... it truly has all the wrappings of a great mystery!

One thing I found odd about the story, though, is the fact that Alma seems to be more able to figure out the clues than Roxanna, despite being younger.  She is the one who found the secret hiding place, she is the one who figures out the identity of the elusive 'Anna' from the diary, and she is the one who persists in re-reading the diary again and again to uncover more clues.  As a reader, I found myself more drawn to Alma and her excitement about solving the mystery than to Roxanna or her brother.  And, I will admit, I was mislead into believing Alma herself might actually have a connection to the old house and the family that lived in it, so I have to give Seaman some credit here for some creative storytelling.

Now, as far as the Pine Barrens themselves, it does turn out that such a thing exists in New Jersey. Known as the "Pinelands," or the "Pines," according to online sources, this area of New Jersey is one of the largest remaining pine barrens ecosystems along the Atlantic coast.  It cross move than seven counties of New Jersey, and to this date, it remains fairly rural and unpopulated.  As accurately described in the book, the Pine Barrens are just off the Atlantic City Expressway.  It seems the Pine Barrens is also associated with a number of legends, such as the Jersey Devil, the ghost of the "Black Doctor," the ghost of "Captain Kidd," the "Black Dog," and a number of other stories.  Thus, it is easy to see how Seaman would have chosen this particular area of the Eastern coast to set this mystery of an old abandoned house and its many secrets.

Another truth brought out in Seaman's book is the cranberry industry.  There are several references in the book to the cranberry farms and plants in the town and its surrounding communities; and it turns out that New Jersey actually produces the third-highest number of cranberries in the country.  Since Seaman lived in New Jersey at the time this book was published, it stands to reason she would have knowledge of the area to be able to include it in her book.

***NOTE - I do not have a copy of the book with the dust jacket, so I have to say a special thanks to George Beatty for allowing me to use his image of the dust jacket for this post.

 

As with Bitsy Finds a Clue (the other book of Seaman's that I own and have read), the internal illustration mirrors the cover art.  The scene shows Roxanna and Alma as they find the odd old lady at the abandoned mansion, sitting on the front porch crying (which happens later in the story).  It is at this moment that Roxanna and Alma are firmly convinced that the old lady has a connection to the house that they have yet to figure out.  The end pages, on the other hand, provide a scene from early in the story, when Chub is digging in the soil while Roxanna, an artist at heart, is busy with her watercolors, painting the beautiful scene before her.  The illustrations are by Carolyn Haywood, who was also an author who wrote more than 40 of her own children's books (mostly famous for her "Betsy" and "Eddie" stories, which I remember reading when I was a child).

I really did enjoy this book, and it has made me want to hunt down and read more of Seaman's mysteries - just hope I can find them at some reasonable prices!

RATING:  10 old 'cabinet' photographs out of 10 for a wonderfully plotted mystery with engaging characters and an exciting story!

The Mystery of Carlitos - the second Mexican Mystery Stories for Girls

It's been more than a year since I read Helen Randolph's first mystery stories for girls set in Mexico, and after reading that book, I was not sure if I would ever find the other two books in this series.  But not so long ago, I managed to pick up the second book in the series for a very small price!  Once again, this book is the Saalfield edition, as is the first book that I own, so it doesn't have the higher quality paper or the glossy internal illustration; but it does still have the same great story as the original A.L. Burt edition, so I'm happy with that!

The Mystery of Carlitos continues the adventures of JoAnn, Peggy, and Florence during the stay with Florence's parents in Mexico.  In the first book, Peggy and Florence helped JoAnn solve a mystery surrounding a window in the house where they are staying that has no visible way to get to, and it leads them to uncover a long lost treasure.  In this mystery, the girls have climbed up into the mountains with Florence's mother to help revive the mother's health in a clean, calm environment.  The girls encounter an extremely poor family, and JoAnn is convinced that one of the young boys in the family has blue eyes, which the others scoff at, claiming she is just looking for another mystery to solve.  Of course, it turns out the boy does have blue eyes, and there is, indeed, a mystery involving his true identity and why this family is trying to hide him up in the mountains.  They learn the boy's name is Carlitos (hence, the title to the book), and the family is protecting him from someone that is merely referred to as the "mean boss" of the coal mine where Jose works.  The girls learn that the boy's father disappeared in the mines, and the boy's mother fell sick not long thereafter and died.  Her dying wish was that Jose's wife, who was her nurse, take the boy and protect him, which they did.  But the question on the girls' minds is - protect him from what?  Why did the coal mine's boss want the boy so badly?

The excitement of the mystery is very slow to build, much like the last book, with more than the first half of the book spent in JoAnn, Peggy, and Florence meeting the family, helping provide the family with food, and even saving the life of the real son (in a somewhat incredulous way, where Florence provides CPR to the boy who has basically collapsed from both malnutrition and sunstroke).  JoAnn's questions about the boy's identity are repeated quite often, until they finally gain the family's trust, and the mother reveals the truth to the girls.  It is here that the girls determine to find any remaining family Carlitos may have in America and restore him to his rightful family.  Randolph provides a few side-stories, such as a bear that has attacked the ranch of a nearby family, taking their pigs, as well as stealing the girls' own store of bacon they had kept near a creek in order to keep it cold.  Unlike other children's mysteries of the day, Randolph has no problem with her protagonists carrying and using a gun, because JoAnn ultimately proves herself to be quite the sharpshooter, taking out the bear in the dead of night!

The climax of this mystery is actually rather exciting, as JoAnn and Florence are kidnapped by the boss, along with Carlitos, and are taken along a dangerous, steep trail during a horrific storm, destined for an unknown fate at the hands of the villain.  Of course, rescue arrives just in the nick of time, and the girls are able to unite Carlitos with an uncle he never knew he had.  

Once again, as with this first book, this one is replete with stereotypes and racism when it comes to the native Mexicans.  The girls often refer to the poor Mexicans as "peons," and continually discuss how "ignorant" the people are, and how they must rescue Carlitos from these people.  At one point, when Carlitos shows up all dirty and covered in soot after helping his father with the charcoal, Peggy remarks, "Say, Jo, your little blue-eyed Mexican seems to have turned into a little nigger" (p. 176).  I actually took a double-take on that line!  But, again, this book was copyrighted in 1936, just one year after the first book, so one must take into consideration the attitudes and beliefs of that day and not judge the author based on today's standards.  I had to remind myself of this many times while reading the book, to avoid disliking the main characters based on these disparaging views of the people of Mexico.

One interesting thing I noted about this edition of the book - the cover depicts the scene where JoAnn and Florence discover little Carlitos and his kidnapper hiding in a small cave during the storm.  The line drawing frontis piece, which is supposed to depict the same scene taken from page 215 of the story, shows Florence and JoAnn peering into the cave, like on the cover, and it shows the back of the kidnapper the same as the cover.  However, where young Carlitos is shown sitting in the background, behind the fire, on the cover, a rather seductive, villainous woman seems to have taken his place on the internal illustration (even though the line below reads "Jo Ann could see that the man and Carlitos were still crouched around the fire").  Not sure why the internal artist substituted a woman for Carlitos in that drawing, and even more confused as to how the publisher let that slip through for publication!

Overall, other than the stereotyping, it's a pretty good story.  Now, I just have to track down that third book to see how the girls finish up their stay in Mexico!

RATING:  7 candy and cake-filled pinatas out of 10 for a mystery filled with liars, kidnappers, and bears - oh, my!