The Curious Cat Spy Club, Book 7 - Hunt for the Silver Dragon

Sometimes, life throws you some really wonderful surprises, and this is definitely one of them!  I have thoroughly enjoyed all six books in the Curious Cat Spy Club series written by Linda Joy Singleton, and when the series ended more than six years ago, I was devastated.  The stories were enjoyable, the characters were fun, and the mysteries all involved animals, which how could anyone not help but love!  Sadly, though, the series was not picked up for additional books, and so the adventures of Kelsey, Becca, and Leo came to an end.  I never though I would see them again ... until a couple of weeks ago, I saw a post from Singleton showing the cover of a brand new Curious Cat Spy Club mystery!  Say what?!?!  Yes, to my great joy, Singleton has provided fans of the series with one final mystery, a love letter to the fans that gives the CCSC one final mystery to solve - and boy, is it a doozy!

 

Hunt for the Silver Dragon is the story of a search for a kidnapped cheetah and her baby cub. But unlike the Club's previous cases, where their search for animals merely brought them up against kidnappers who were looking for profit or some such, this case pits them against en enemy who is deadly - one who is taking pot-shots with arrows at animals all throughout the community!  Kelsey and her friends become involved when they are chasing after a lost dog and come across an injured sheep, who has been shot by an arrow.  Kesley catches a glimpse of a shadowy figure in green and black, but her attention is called away to help save the animal before she can take any action.

 

I applaud Singleton for making this final CCSC mystery a really doozy!  There are a lot of blurred lines with regards to the suspects, and the threat level is so much higher in this book than any other.  From the get-go, it is made clear Kelsey's and Becca's moms are fully aware of the arrow attacks (because Kelsey happens to "hear" the Sheriff mention that the sheep was just "another"attack!), and the girls are warned in no uncertain terms that they are not to be involved - in fact, they are given an opportunity to help out with a mobile pet adoption project as a distraction.  The only problem is, that distraction turns out to bring the three crime-solvers further into the case.  The baby cheetah cub mysteriously turns up in the back of the adoption van, and Kelsey is certain that the young man who is volunteering at the animal sanctuary owned by Becca's mom is somehow involved.  But Becca refuses to hear about it, because she has become enthralled with the young man, and it ultimately causes a strain in the girls' relationship.  And when Leo announces he is going to spend a week with his father, Kelsey suddenly finds herself alone and under strict orders NOT to investigate the arrow attacks.

 

But, c'mon.  This is Kelsey Case we are talking about, and there is no way she is going to give up on helping lost or injured animals!  And, as luck would have it, her past successes makes her the perfect person for Sheriff Fischer to use to go undercover in the hopes of finding that missing cheetah.  The only problem is, her assignment is to find out whatever information she can about an archery range in a nearby city and she is not doing it alone.  Yup, that's right, she gets partnered with the young man who has caught Becca's eye.  The same young man Kelsey is sure is involved with the missing cheetah.  And the same one who has been lying to everyone and has been disappearing at the most inopportune times.  He is hiding something, and Kelsey is absolutely sure whatever secret he is keeping, it will give her the clue she need to find the missing animal.

 

A missing cheetah ... an archer on the loose targeting animals ... a juvenile delinquent with important secrets ... and a high-stakes, illegal hunt for endangered animals - all of this leads up to a rather intense conclusion that leaves Kelsey the target (literally!) in a deadly game.  If Singleton wanted to end this series with a bang, this book certainly did the job!  After six books, the reader already feels a connection with these characters, so when there is a rift between Kelsey and Becca in this book, and when it seems like the Club is falling apart, the reader feels the loss almost as much as Kelsey does.  Thankfully, all's well that ends well, and by the end of the book, not only do the kids reunite and make their friendships stronger than ever, but they catch the criminals and rescue the missing cheetah (as if there was any doubt).

 

Now, a CCSC book would not be complete without some nods to other series books out there - such as Kelsey's bunny, "Trixie," and her kitten, "Honey" (p. 32).  These are clear nods to Trixie Belden and her best friend, Honey Wheeler. There's also the "hidden staircase" that leads up to Kelsey's room in the family's new house, which would be a reference to Nancy Drew's second mystery, The Hidden Staircase.  It's always a treat when an author is a fan of series books from our youth, as invariably, it leads to plenty of Easter Eggs within their books for readers like me to find!

 

On the other side, there were a few snafus in this book, that I have to wonder if they got through because the book was self-published rather than distributed through a publishing house.  The first is the reference to the number of animals attacked by the archer.  After finding the injured sheep, Kelsey's mom says the sheep makes the third attack (p. 35).  Yet, after a fourth arrow is found in a playground, the sheriff informs Kelsey that "...you know about the arrow attacks.  Three so far if we include the rogue arrow found in a tree by a playground" (p. 123).  If the sheep was the third attack, then the arrow in the playground would have made the fourth, not the third, attack.  In addition, later in the story, when Kelsey, Becca, and Leo are helping with the mobile pet adoption van, it is said when the day ends that "[t]en animals now have forever homes" (p. 97).  Before they can leave, a man who had been looking at a dog earlier comes back at the last second to adopt the dog - bringing the total up to eleven animals adopted (p. 98).  However, after the van returns to the pet center, Becca's cousin Danielle, remarks, "Things went so well today - nine wonderful adoptions..." (p. 103).  Does this mean she forgot about two of them, or were two of the adoptions not really so wonderful?  Yes, I realize this is probably being just a bit nit-picky, and the inconsistencies did not really reduce my enjoyment of the story - but my OCD kicked in when I realized the numbers were not being consistent.

 

That aside, the Hunt for the Silver Dragon was a wonderful book-end for the Curious Cat Spy Club series, and it gave fans (like me!) one final chance to spend some time with Kelsey, Becca, Leo, their families, and their furry friends before closing the book on their adventures once and for all (or ... until perhaps Singleton gets inspired to write a second farewell novel in another few years ... hint! hint!).

 

RATING:  9 slices of double cheese and pepperoni pizza out of 10 for upping the ante to give the CCSC an exciting and dangerous final adventure for all of their fans to enjoy! 

Whitman Mystery Stories - Winnie Winkle and the Diamond Heirlooms

Before picking up this book, I had never heard of "Winnie Winkle" before, but apparently Miss Winkle was the star of her own newspaper comic strip for a little over 75 years!  The strip was quite an achievement, and more than just for its longevity.  Created by Joseph Medill Patterson, the strip was written and drawn by Martin Branner (who provided the illustrations for this Whitman edition), and it wa one of the first strips to feature a working woman as its lead character.  In the strip, Winnie Winkle supported her parents and younger brother, and she eventually married and became pregnant (which, oddly enough, some newspapers felt was too risque for a comic strip, causing them to drop the daily dtrip from their papers!).  Branner wrote and drew the strip (with the aid of various assistants over the years) until 1962, when he suffered a stroke, and other creators took over the strip  until it was eventually discontinued in 1996.  Besides this book from Whitman, Winnie was also featured in a one-issue comic published by Dell, as well as ten feature films written by Branner and starring Ethelyn Gibson was the title character.  So, with this much fame out there, it is rather odd that I never heard of the character prior to finding this book...

 

Winnie Winkle and the Diamond Heirlooms is a fairly standard children's mystery of the period, but I have to say, it was rather engaging and well-written.  I'm not familiar with the author, Helen Berke, but I will definitely try and locate more of her books.  A quick search online reveals she wrote more than a couple of Whitman's "Big Little Books / Better Little Books," including Captain Midnight, Dick Tracey, Smilin' Jack, Terry and the Pirates, and Little Orphan Annie.  Winnie Winkle appears to be the only full-size novel that Ms. Berke wrote for Whitman, which is a shame, as this story was probably one of the better Whitman novels I've read to date!  Now, to be fair, part of that reason could be that I am unfamiliar with the character, having never read the comic strip, so I have no ability to compare the characters and characterization in this story with those in Branner's daily strip.  That being said, I went into this hoping for a good mystery, and I definitely got that!

 

The mystery begins when Winnie gets an urgent call from Mary Dee Adams, an old friend from high school, who begs Winnie to rush to Chicago to help her.  It seems Mary's Aunt Rhoda passed away, and the only thing left in her estate is an old house out in the country.  Aunt Rhoda had previously told her there was money and jewels that she was leaving her, but somehow they are gone!  So, Winnie, being the good friend that every girl sleuth is, gives up her long-awaited vacation plans and heads over to Chicago to help her friend. Winnie meets Tommy Blake, her artist boyfriend, and the three of them prepare to head out to Blainville - but not before they have dinner with Mr. Jenkins, a man claiming to be friends with Tommy (but Winnie suspects the friendship is one-sided!), and not before poor Winnie gets kidnapped by someone who mistakes her for Mary!  There is something definitely fishy going on, and Winnie decides she must get to the bottom of it.

 

Through unexpected circumstances, Winnie, Mary, and Tommy wind up as prisoners in the house Mary has inherited from her aunt, as an unscrupulous con man and his lackey (who turns out to be an even more dangerous criminal than his boss!) are determined to locate the fortune in jewels that Mary's aunt allegedly left her niece as a part of her estate.  The only problem is, no one knows where they are, and there appear to be no clues as to where to find them!  It becomes a race to see who will find them first - are they hidden in the grandfather clock that Aunt Rhoda had moved up to her room on the second floor?  Could they be stored in the one of the chandeliers hanging in various rooms?  Are they in one of the trunks in the attics, or in one of the storage chests out in the barn?  Every drawer is pulled out, every closet is combed from top to bottom, and every wall is checked for secret panels - but, alas!   No jewels are to be found.  Winnie and her friends eventually focus on getting word to someone outside of the house of their predicament, in the hopes someone will rescue them from the clutches of these villains.

 

The story does not necessarily build a lot of suspense, but there are definitely some tense moments (when one of the captors takes a shot at Tommy when he attempts to sneak out one night, or when the con man purposefully shows Winnie that he, too, has a gun and is not afraid to use it!).  The location of the jewels and the way in which Winnie is able to find them is actually pretty ingenuous, and I give the author credit for crafting a fun little mystery (and for giving Winnie more than half-a-brain when it comes to outwitting the villains!).  Now, there are a couple of "Nancy Drew" moments in the story - such as the secret compartment in the grandfather clock (Old Clock, anyone?), and the old diary that provides them with a few hints about the jewels (Clue in the Diary).  However, those similarities only enhance the story, as I saw them more as homages than I did any cheap rip-offs.

 

The artist on the Winnie Winkle comic strip, Martin Branner, provides all of the illustrations for this book, including the endpages, which features a scene taken directly from page 42 of the story, when Winnie, Mary, and Tommy are taken by a horse-drawn wagon from the train station to the home that once belonged to Aunt Rhoda.  Thankfully, the scene is from early in the story and does not spoil anything from the mystery, as a number of endpages from other Whitman mysteries have done!  

 

As always, there are a few tidbits from the story worth nothing.  The first is found when Winnie comes across a medicine cabinet full of a number of bottles of various kinds of pills, including sleeping pills.  She realizes they could be used to put their captors to sleep, giving them a means to escape; and when Tommy suggests giving them two pills each, Winnie quickly replies, "...we'd better give them just one.  We don't want to kill them, even if they deserve it" (p. 109).  I can't say I've ever read a children's mystery where the protagonist actually believes someone deserves to die!  However, that scene is quickly forgiven by the author's later references to books that Winnie finds in one of the trunks in the barn.  "She picked up a few at random and looked at the titles.  Horatio Alger ... Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth.  Rover Boys..." (pp. 139-40). Anyone even vaguely familiar with children's series book at the turn of the 20th century will recognize Alger and the Rover Boys!  As for Mrs. Southworth, she was a popular author of the late 19th century, writing about heroines who challenged the Victorian perceptions of that day (sort of how Winnie Winkle, as a working woman, challenged the idea of women's place in the working arena of the early 1900s).  It was surprising to see references to real authors and book series in a title such as this!

 

This was certainly one of the most enjoyable Whitman mysteries I have read, and most definitely one of the better written ones.  I will be searching for some of those Big / Better Little Books that Berke has written.

 

RATING:  9 specially-made chocolate cakes out of 10 for a well-written mystery that takes comic-strip characters and fleshes them out into very readable characters in a great story!

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!

To the Dark Towner - a Magnum Gothic original

This is another one of those Gothic novels that I picked up because of the cover - in this case, it has a very slight resemblance to the Rudy Nappi cover of the Nancy Drew book, The Sign of the Twisted Candles.  Both books have a single candle prominently displayed on the cover, with the head of a woman next to the candle, and when I saw this book at the used bookstore, my mind immediately went to the Nancy Drew book, so I bought it.  It has been sitting on my shelf for several years, so I figured it was about time I read it.  The back cover blurb cries out "Witch Cult!" and goes on to give a brief synopsis of the story awaiting the reader inside.  Knowing how most Gothic novels of the '60s and '70s often hinted at supernatural tales (but by the end reveal it to be merely a pretense used by a vile villain to achieve his or her goals), I anticipated the same here.  Boy, was I wrong!

 

To the Dark Tower is a somewhat lengthy novel for a Gothic that is not labeled as "Queen-Size" or "Empress Size."  At 187 pages in length, it provides the author with plenty of space to flesh out his story and characters - and yes, I said "his" story.  Lyda Belknap Long is actually a pseudonym for American writer Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994), whose writing includes horror, fantasy, science fiction, and Gothic novels, as well as comic books and non-fiction.  "Lyda" is the name of Long's wife, and so he used her name for his Gothic novels (which is funny, because this particular book has a dedication at the front that reads, "To the untiring help and teachings of my husband, Frank Belknap Long."  I was surprised to learn Long wrote scripts for DC Comics, including stories with Congo Bill and the original Green Lantern, as well as scripts for Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel stories (later known as Shazam!).  When I learned that Long was also a close friend of H.P. Lovecraft, the nature of this story made a lot more sense.

 

When the back cover says "Witch Cult!," it really means it.  The opening Prelude, which is an impressive 18-pages long, does not even introduce readers to the main character.  Instead, we follow a young man named Willie who witnesses a ceremony deep in the Kentucky woods, watching in horror as a young woman is sacrificed to some unseen good.  When he tries to escape, hoping to find salvation in the nearby house of Dr. Wilfred Allen, he is stopped when a robed stranger steps out and leaves an object on the front door of the doctor's house - an object that the doctor finds and with great anxiety throws it into the woods.  Willie finds the object, which is a doll in the likeness of the doctor's female friend, Joan; but the doll has needles sticking into it, and before Willie can do anything about it, he is chased, ultimately meeting his untimely end.

 

Long then jumps to our main character, Joan Lambert, who is driving her car along the desolate backwoods Kentucky road, trying anxiously not to allow her fear to overwhelm her.  An archeologist, Joan has just returned from Spain, where she found some ancient cave writings that revealed a witch cult that existed centuries ago - and her exploration of those caves released an unholy, unseen terror that has followed her across the ocean to Kentucky!  She hopes Dr. Allen can help her get these terrors under control, but the sudden appearance of a man in a monk robe standing in the middle of the road causes her to swerve up an embankment.  What follows is a rather lengthy story of dark horror that wavers between the real and the imaginary.  Are Joan's fears grounded in reality, or are they all really just in her head?  Dr. Allen has invited a group of specialists to his secluded home in the hopes of helping Joan.  But when Willie's body turns up, and a young couple on their honeymoon wind up dead in their car at the bottom of a gully, it is clear there is more going on here than imaginary fears.

 

I do give Long credit for making the cult very real.  The deaths of Willie and the young couple (as well as another couple who stop to help them) are rather brutal and unexpected, making the book all that much darker.  What has me confused, however, is the title and the cover to the book.  To the Dark Tower would seem to hint that there is some tower of a great mansion involved in the story somehow - even the cover has painted a dark mansion in the background, behind Joan's floating head.  Yet, nowhere in the story is there any tower (not even mentioned in passing!), nor is there any house that would resemble the one on the cover.  In fact, there is also no candle used anywhere in the story!  The tale is set in the modern time, with motor vehicles, electricity, and such, so there is no need for any candles.  So, this begs the question - what prompted the title and the cover art?  I'm aware that many publisher used (and re-used!) cover art for their Gothic novels that had no real relation to the story inside; they simply wanted covers that would attract those who were hooked on the Gothic craze that had taken over store bookshelves everywhere.  But the title?  It has no connection whatsoever to the story, so one is left to wonder why...

 

I did like the fact the story was set in Kentucky, my home state.  I wish Long had narrowed down a location within the state, even if it was simply to have the characters drive through a specific area or mention a nearby town.  Instead, Long keeps it vague, simply keeping it in a small town with plenty of wooded area.  Even his references to Joan's time spent in Spain does not narrow down the location to any particular area of that country.   There are, however, a few names in the book that caught my eye.  When Joan meets the specialists at Dr. Allen's house, the men's names (which I'm guessing were arbitrarily chosen by the author) brought a smile to my face.  The first is John Claymore (p. 132), whose last name is also the name of a city used by Mildred Wirt Benson in her Madge Sterling series, her Penny Parker series, and a few other of her books.  The second is Joseph Moulton (p. 133), whose last name was the middle name of the creator of Wonder Woman (William Moulton Marston).  The third is Helen Traven (p. 133), whose last name is shared by novelist B. Traven, which was a pen name of an unidentified activist who authored a number of books between the 1920s and 1960s.  It is doubtful Long pulled those names from those particular places, but it is a fun coincidence.

 

The story is very heavy on exposition and very light on dialogue, which is one aspect that I did not enjoy.  The majority of the book focused on Joan's fears of the unseen terror that seemed to lurk just out of sight, always following her, always leading her to wonder if death might not be a better option than living the rest of her life with this fear overpowering her.  Long stays inside Joan's mind, with her obsessive fear completely taking her over, and after a while, you (as the reader) wish the author would ground the book in some level of reality with conversations and interaction with other people.  However, finding out after I finished reading the book that Long was friends with Lovecraft, it gave me a new point-of-view with the story, and I think I can appreciate his writing style a little more.

 

This is far from your typical Gothic novel of that era.  If you are expecting a story of a young, innocent woman being whisked away to a foreboding mansion with two men vying for her affection with dark secrets surrounding them at all every turn - this is not one of those stories.  But, if you want something a bit different, a bit darker, and a bit morbid, then this one is for you.

 

RATING:  8 peculiarly shaped musical instruments out of 10 for giving readers a completely different side of the Gothic tale. 

 

Kay Tracey Mystery Stories No. 2 - The Strange Echo

In 1934, the Stratemeyer Syndicate offered  up a new series for girls - the Kay Tracey Mystery Stories.  The first book in the series, The Secret of the Red Scarf, was not a particularly good read - it was felt like a jumbled hodge-podge of circumstances and events that were mashed together to create a mystery.  While this second book in the series was written by the same ghostwriter, Elizabeth M. Duffield Ward, I thought perhaps since it was based upon an outline from a different Stratemeyer sister (Harriet, instead of Edna), the story might be more straightforward and more coherent.  Unfortunately, that was not the case.

 

The premise for The Strange Echo is a bit unique, so I can at least give the Syndicate credit for trying to come up with something different.  The main mystery involves some unusual echoes that are heard when Kay Tracey is visiting her friends, Wilma and Betty Worth, at Lost Lake.  The echoes seem to form partial words, but they do not make sense, and Kay must figure out what the echoes mean before she can figure out what is really happening at Lost Lake.  And this is where the mystery starts to go off the deep end, so to speak. It seems in addition to "the strange echo" that is heard, the tourist community is also plagued by thunder and lightning storms that bring no rain; odd glowing lights coming from a nearby valley; ghostly apparitions seen in that valley; and other sundry incidents that have Mr. and Mrs. Worth concerned about the girls going out to investigate the echoes.  Of course, Kay is not afraid, as she does not believe in the supernatural, and she knows everything has a logical explanation.

 

What is not logical are the numerous other mysteries in this book that, eventually, all tie into the strange events taking place at Lost Lake.  First, there is the foreign woman Kay meets in a department store in town who she overhears talking on the phone about echoes in the valley and who appears to be hiding something in her purse.  Second, there is the local bookseller who is upset because an antique book written in a foreign language has had pages ripped out of it, ruining its value (can you see where this is going?).  Third, there is the elderly man Kay and Mr. Worth pick up on their way to Lost Lake who is also headed to the lake in an attempt to locate a fortune his parents supposedly buried many years before when the area was destroyed by a landslide, which, coincidentally, is what created the lake (more on that later).  Fourth, there is the mysterious cabin deep in the woods, in which Kay sees a young man, along with the foreign woman AND the elderly man she met on her way to Lost Lake! Fifth, there is the "Scientific Instrument Company," from which a "sound device" is stolen.  The story has so many threads, Kay and the Worth twins hop from one direction to the next, and one wonders how in the world all of these could possibly be tied together by the end?!?!

 

In addition to the strange echo being heard, a major emphasis is placed on Mr. Nelson and his search for his family's treasure in Faraway Valley (yes, that is the name given the valley just below Lost Lake).  He appears repeatedly in the story, and Kay eventually learns that his story about the town being buried beneath a landslide many years ago, ultimately forming Lost Lake in the area, is true.  What is interesting is that Lost Lake is, indeed, a real lake located in Oregon that, once a year, completely disappears down a big hole in the lake bed (which hydrologists believe fills during the winter when streams leading to the lake are high, and then during the summer when rainfall lessens, the lake slowly drains).

 

What is more interesting about Lost Lake, however, is that 28 years after this book came out, the Stratemeyer Syndicate published their 24th Dana Girls mystery, titled, aptly enough, The Secret of Lost Lake (1962).  And before you ask, yes, the mystery centers around a community buried under a landslide many years prior, which landslide created the "lost lake."  There are other elements from this Kay Tracey mystery that appear in the Dana Girls' book - an elderly individual (in this case, a woman), whose parents were killed in the landslide, searching for a treasure in the area; unscrupulous people trying to find the treasure first; and a clue to the mystery being heard in a mysterious echo bouncing around in the valley!  In addition, one of the characters in Lost Lake is named "Simpson," which is also the name of the department store in The Strange Echo where Kay overhears the foreign woman speaking.  I suppose Harriet was running short on ideas for stories in the early '60s and decided to simply recycle a plot from a series that was not in print at the time!

 

A few tidbits from the story that are worth noting - the first is when Mrs. Tracey and Kay's cousin Bill are discussing the young sleuth, Mrs. Tracey observes that "Kay is like her father ... Roger was a newspaperman by profession, but I always felt that he should have been a detective.  He had a passion for apparently unimportant little details that most people would have passed by.  He used to work out the solution of criminal cases just for fun, and he was usually correct" (pp. 17-18), to which Bill replies, "He would have made a good lawyer.  And his daughter is like him -  a regular chip off the old block" (p. 18).  This description almost reads like a mixed description of Anthony Parker and Carson Drew!  The second tidbit is the breakfast served by Mrs. Worth at their cottage near Lost Lake - ham, eggs, and "corn pone" (p. 37).  I had never heard of corn pone before, so I had to look it up.  It turns out corn pone is a dense, unleavened bread made from cornmeal, salt, and water and usually fried or based in a skillet (sometimes using bacon drippings for flavor).  One thing we can always count on series books doing is teaching us something new every time we read one!

 

The final observation I want to make regarding this story is the utter vagueness used with regard to all of the mechanical and technological devises used in the story.  The author is so nebulous about all of them that it leaves the reader in a state of disbelief about all of them.  From the ambiguous name of the scientific company - "Scientific Instrument Company - to the vague descriptions of the various devices, such as the sound distortion machine, the strong wind device, the mechanical gadgets used to create glowing eyes and growls, and the unexplained tool used to draw in Kay and her cousin Bill, causing her to see distorted images; none of the technology is ever fully explained, nor is there any description of how they work (nor even any technical name given to the devices).  The story reads almost like one written by an elementary school student who wants to use strange devices but has no scientific knowledge to describe the machines or explain how they actually work.  This is a great disappointment coming from a Syndicate that thrived for many years on including detailed, educational explanations in their series books that provided readers with true learning experiences.  (For that matter, the fact that the "foreign" woman Hilda Arno, as well as her sister, Mrs. Alice Crosby, are both referred to as having accents and referenced as foreign women on multiple occasions, the author never actually identifies from what "foreign" country the women hail, leaving the reader to guess as to the national heritage of these sisters!)

 

The art for the original edition of this book appears to have once again provided by E.A. Furman (1879-1965), featuring a cover painting that shows Kay searching for those missing pages of the book in the isolated cabin and an interior illustration that finds the girls following Mr. Nelson into the woods.  The later Books, Inc. reprint of the book has another painted cover by "ELAINE," that unidentified artist known only by the one name, always written in all caps. Still another edition of the book, reprinted in 1964 by Berkley Highland Books, gives readers a third cover art, which depicts a rather exciting moment when Kay, Wilma, and Betty are out on the lake with a quickly approaching storm.  This third cover art is beautifully rendered and, quite honestly, could easily have been used for a Nancy Drew cover, since the characters are a redhead, a blonde, and a brunette with expressions that accurately display the personalities of Nancy, Bess, and George from that series.  The artist is unidentified, but I personally find this cover to be the most dramatic of them all and the one I prefer the most.

 

I must admit, these first two books do not provide high hopes for the rest of the series.  After reading these two, our book club has decided to move on to other books, as these are simply too convoluted and not written well enough to hold our interest.  Perhaps one day, I might come back and give some other books in this series a chance (and who knows, since Mildred Wirt took over writing of the series with book three, perhaps it improved from there!); but, for now, I think I am giving the Kay Tracey Mystery Stories a rest.

 

RATING:  5 crumpled pages torn from an antique book out of 10 for at least giving readers a unique premise on which to base a mystery, even if it lacks a well-executed follow-through. 

 

 

Meg and the Ghost of Hidden Springs - Mystery #4 in a series

This book is now the third of four books in this series to feature a mystery that centers around a house - Witch's Stairway involved the house that was about to be lost by the two sisters if they could not find the money to save it; the Treasure Nobody Saw centered around a house that was said to be abandoned, yet was not; and now this book features a house that is alleged to be haunted.  This is also the third of four books to feature a house that is located next to the title character's home - Disappearing Diamonds involved Mrs. Partlow's house, which is next door to Meg's home; the Treasure Nobody Saw centered around a house that could be seen from Meg's bedroom window; and this book features a house just across the river from where Meg lives. Leaves one wondering what the last two books hold in store...

 

The Ghost of Hidden Springs is actually a sad tale about the ghost of a young girl who died tragically after the entire town shunned her family and refused to attend a birthday party thrown in honor of the girl's sixteenth birthday many years before. The family up and left town after that, and since then, people have sworn they saw the girl's ghost haunting the Hannigan house.  Meg does not believe in ghosts, but even she can't explain the ghostly girl her best friend's brothers saw; nor can she explain the open window she sees on an upper floor of the house - one she knows was closed before.  She and her best friend Kerry set out to uncover the truth about what is going on, only to find that a descendant of the Hannigan family has come to Hidden Springs as an heir to the estate.  What is uncanny is the young girl's resemblance to the girl who did - in fact, she even shares the same name: Kathleen!

 

As dark as the back story is, the mystery itself is actually relatively fun.  Is there a ghost that is knocking things off walls and running down the stairs?  Did a ghost lock Kerry's twin brothers in the basement room?  Is a ghost playing the piano?  Did a ghost damage the step on the front porch, causing Kathleen's mother to fall?  Meg is determined to uncover the truth, and the electronics found in the basement room, the apple core she finds on the floor, and the shadowy figure she sees running into the woods convinces her the ghost is actually a real person.  Is someone trying to force Kathleen and her mother to leave the property?  The will of her great-aunt stipulates that Kathleen must reside in the house for at least a month, at the end of which she must throw a lavish party for the townspeople of Hidden Springs in order to inherit the house and all of the wealth that goes with it - otherwise, the bequest defaults to a second heir who remains unnamed (as the lawyer indicates that heir is not even aware of the bequest and will remain in the dark unless Kathleen fails to follow her great-aunt's instructions).

 

Meg suspects some local real estate developers who are anxious to get their hands on the property so they can tear down and build multiple houses on the land (p. 97) - which is an amazing coincidence, because the Zebra Mystery Puzzler I just read prior to this book also had the same situation, in which a real estate developer was suspected of murder just to get his hands on a large property he wanted to subdivide (The Green Lama Mystery).  Odd how I happen to read both of these books right after each other!  Meg also suspects the great-aunt's housekeeper, who Kathleen's mother hired to help clean the house and prepare it for the upcoming party.  The police chief thinks it may just be a local homeless man causing the problems, and Kerry even suggests that the unknown heir may be aware of the bequest and is trying to get Kathleen to leave.  As Meg's father tells her - she must put on her thinking cap in order to solve this one!

 

There is a moment in the story when Meg is exploring in the Hannigan house when she hears a noise in the hall, so she darts "behind one of the dusty draperies" and takes a "cautious peek" to see who it is (p. 72).  The scene reminds me of a very similar scene from the previous book, where Meg is hiding behind a curtain while an intruder breaks into the library of that house (a scene depicted on the cover of that paperback).  Interesting that identical scenes like this would be used in both both books, particularly one after another.

 

One thing I was glad to see in this story is the return (albeit very briefly) of Meg's Siamese cat, Thunder (p. 103).  Considering the fact the covers to the paperback printings of this series show Meg and Thunder under her name, one would think the cat would have a larger role in the series.  Sadly, such is not the case.

 

The original hardback printing of this mystery features art by Cliff Schule (who also continues to provide the interiors) and depicts a scene from the end of the story, where Meg and Kerry, wearing their costumes from the party thrown by Kathleen's mother, head outside to see if they can hear the ghost of Kathleen's long dead ancestor.  The later paperback version of the book features a cover by Olindo Giacomini, which shows Meg watching a ghostly figure retreat into the woods.  This scene does not specifically appear in the book, although there is a moment where Meg does see a furtive figure fleeing into the woods one night (although it is not a ghost, and she is aware of that).

 

This fourth entry into the series is not bad at all, but the culprit is fairly easy to spot, and even this person's motive is relatively simple to figure out.  Of course, the age group for which the book is intended might not find it quite so easy as an adult reader!

 

RATING:  8 old homemade transmitters out of 10 for another fun-filled mystery that gives Meg a chance to help yet another family in need!

A Zebra Mystery Puzzler #20 - The Green Lama Mystery

With this 20th Zebra Mystery Puzzler, I hit the one-third mark for this 60-book series, and with it, we see the return of Josephine Kains' (Ronald Joseph Goulart's) television reporter turned sleuth, Terry Spring.  This is Kains' third foray into the Puzzler series, and it offers up a very Agatha Christie-style mystery for the amateur detective to solve.  I do love the fact that Kains' books feature titles very reminiscent of the old children's mystery series from back in the day - Devil Mask Mystery and The Curse of the Golden Skull being the previous two mysteries. They give these books a stronger feel of being "adult" Nancy Drew-style mysteries rather than just your run-of-the-mill murder mystery books!

 

The Green Lama Mystery offers up a mystery with plenty of suspects, but is told from a rather unique perspective.  The reader actually spends very little time with Terry Spring (who is the television reporter that is supposed to be the one solving the crime!); instead, the book seems to tell the story from the points of view of several other characters - particularly, Sara Denzlow, a young teacher who has, along with two of her cousins, inherited a creepy old mansion set up on a lonely hill outside of San Francisco, California.   In fact, the story opens with her driving towards the house, when she sees the ghost of an old sea captain who allegedly died over a hundred years ago - a ghost that is allegedly her ancestor who was killed with a heavy statue of a Buddhist lama made out of jade.  

 

Sara and her cousins, Barry and Arlen, have been required to live in the spooky house as a part of the bequest for their now deceased relative - in order to inherit the house, all of the land surrounding it, and the rather large bank accounts, the three must remain in the house for at least a year!  Sara can use the change of scenery after her recent divorce; Barry is determined to take the story of his ancestor's ghost and write a book about it, having dropped out of medical school to pursue a career in writing; and Arlen is hoping any publicity about the house and it history will help jump-start his acting career in Hollywood.  As for our crime-solving sleuth?  Well, she has been given the assignment to do one of her mini-documentaries about the haunting of the great house - so along with her faithful sidekicks, Chavez and Jess, she heads for San Francisco.

 

While we spend a few brief chapters with Terry, Chavez, and Jess (and I have to say, Goulart/Kains has really hit his stride with these characters, because their rapport in this book is top-notch - I thoroughly enjoyed reading their banter!) as they get their assignment and hop a plan to cross the country, a number of the chapters in the first half of the book introduce the Denzlow cousins, give us background on the house, and introduce us to some of the other suspects, including Richard Crossen, a slick real estate developer who is more than just interested in getting his hands on that property in order to develop a number of homes to sell; Roy Shooter, who is Sara's ex-husband who just happens to be in town at the same time as these weird things are happening; and Zack Carney, a reporter for a trashy tabloid who is not above helping people fake things in order to get an unusual story.  

 

After Arlen is pushed down the stairs, resulting in a broken leg that leaves him bedridden, readers meet the next suspect(s) in this murder mystery - Reverend Postage and Sister Martha of the Fellowship of the Inward Light, a religious organization (better, a cult!) who is the secondary beneficiary of the house and all other assets from the estate should the heirs fail to reside there for at least a year.  They show up on a dark and stormy night, claiming to have had car trouble at the bottom of the hill.  That same night, Sara's ex-husband shows up, demanding money, at which point Barry throws him out into the rain.  Well, the next morning gives readers the murder victim - yup, you guessed it.  Poor Barry is found dead in the library, having had his head bashed in by the green lama (a repeat of his ancestor's death so many years prior). The question then becomes - who killed Barry?

 

From this point, the book follows the local police lieutenant as she investigates the crime, with Terry following along to assist - all the while hinting that she has the thing figured out, but she needs to check a few things to make sure first.  We get more scenes with Sara, we even get scenes with Chavez and Jess as they discuss what is going on and what they believe Terry is or should be doing.  What we do not get are the actual scenes of Terry investigating.  Rather, we get Terry mentioning what she is planning to do, then Goulart/Kains skips ahead to after the fact, so the reader is left wondering what it is that Terry did and what information she learned.  Of course, there is a scene fairly early on when Terry is speaking with a potential suspect that pretty much gives away the fact this person is the killer - in fact, there are two blatant clues in the book that give it away so early, that the rest of the read is pretty much perfunctory just to see how she reveals the killer's identity.

 

At least the revelation in the last two chapters is done wonderfully dramatic, much as you would watch on an episode of Murder, She Wrote or read in any Christie novel.  Terry has the police lieutenant gather all the suspects to the scene of the crime where she goes through the entire story of how the ghost was fabricated, who pulled the scam and why, and ultimately who the killer is (through a clever con that forces the killer to reveal him/herself). The ending sort-of makes up for the lack of Terry Spring through most of the mystery.

 

The cover artist is once again not identified (although there is a possible name just below the spool of film, but it is cut off so you can only see some smidgens of white that could potentially be the top part of a signature), but the scene comes directly from the moment where Sara walks into the library and discovers her cousin's corpse.  The only problem is, in the story, Sara is wearing her sleeping robe, not a blouse and jeans.  Unless the person on the cover is supposed to be Terry, which is completely in error, as Sara was the one with the flashlight, and she is the one who picked up the glove as depicted on the cover.  The interior illustrations are provided by Sanford Hoffman, whose drawings are much better than those in the previous book.

 

A couple of things to note - I smiled at Arlen's reference to Terry as a "regular Nancy Drew, is she?" (p. 45), as well as Terry's comment to Jess that she makes Terry "sound like Wonder Woman" (p. 124).  Two of my favorite fictional women referenced in one story - what are the odds?!  There is also an editing or publishing snafu that caught my eye on page 91.  At the top of the page, the first line reads:

"Barry's been killed," Terry told him.  chest.  "Christ, you must be ... Barry?" He shifted his weight...

Not sure what was actually supposed to be between "told him" and "chest," but it appears an entire sentence, or maybe even a paragraph, was somehow omitted.  I guess that is one mystery that we'll never have solved...

 

Of the three Terry Spring mysteries thus far, I'd saw this was my second favorite (with Golden Skull being my first). I know there are several more stories in the pipeline before the series ends, so I'm hoping I will get some better stories in those yet to be read!

 

RATING:  7 gold-fringed drapes out of 10 for a decent enough attempt at a clever mystery of misdirect and deception, with a great climatic reveal!