Whitman Mystery Stories - Polly the Powers Model: The Puzzle of the Haunted Camera

This latest Whitman Authorized Edition that I read is a bit off-beat.  Of course, it is written by Kathryn Heisenfelt, and based on the previous Whitman books I've read written by her (Bonita Granville and Betty Grable), I suppose I should not have expected anything different.  Both of those stories were odd, to say the least, and this one follows their lead.  This book came out in 1942, the same year as the Bonita Granville mystery, while the Betty Grable story did not get published until the following year.  If I were to base all Whitman mysteries on these three books, I would likely stop buying and reading them; however, since I have read a number of them that do have enjoyable stories, I will simply chalk these up as exceptions to the rule.

Polly the Powers Model: The Puzzle of the Haunted Camera does not feature an actual model from the John Robert Powers modeling agency.  Instead, while nodding to the actual modeling agency in New York, Heisenfelt creates a fictional character to be the "Powers Model" of the story.  Polly Hartigan is the model, who is returning home after "making it big" in Ne York City.  She is met by her younger sister, Susan, who is not only eager to follow in her sister's footsteps, but seems to be hiding some secret about the family.  Soon enough, Polly finds that a mystery awaits her at home, as everyone is a bit "off."  Her father, Peter Hartigan, is more than just depressed about his failing hardware store.  Her Aunt Floss, who lives with them, seems more worried about things than ever before.  And her Aunt Vide, to whom Polly ad been sending part of her paychecks to help with family expenses, appears to have not told anyone about the money, leaving Polly to wonder what she has done with it.  A general sense of gloom hangs over the entire household, and no one will tell Polly exactly what is going on.

And this is the primary focus of the first half of the book, as Polly is constantly wondering what is wrong; yet, she never comes right out and asks anyone, other than Susan, who refuses to tell her and just keeps asking Polly to take her back to New York with her as soon as possible.  The constant conundrum of "what's wrong with my family?' gets weary real fast, and I had to force myself to trudge trough the story to hopefully reach a point where the story moved forward in any meaningful way.  It's not until Polly inadvertently takes a photo of her sister than has a sinister man in the background does the mystery start to unravel.  Aunt Vide sees the photo and collapses, leading Polly to finally start to figure out that her aunt is involved in something shady.  

 

After the halfway point of the book, Heisenfelt finally gets things moving, and Polly starts taking some affirmative steps to solve the mystery.  She questions the attorney who lives nearby, she pushes Susan to reveal what has her so anxious to leave home, and she engages the help of her father's assistant at the hardware store to keep watch on the house in case that mystery man makes an appearance.  The climactic face-off between Polly and the stranger is really the only exciting moment in the story, and it is here that Heisenfelt provides readers with something worth reading.  Polly's ingenuity and bluff leads the stranger to make a mistake that leads to his defeat and capture, and the whole truth finally comes out.  It's just a shame that it took so many pages in the book to reach a truly readable point.

 

I'm not familiar with the artist for this book, Hedwig Jo Meixner.  The only other book I've read where I've seen Meixner's illustrations was Nancy Craig and the Mystery of the Fire Opal, and the illustrations in that one were actually better than this one.  The line drawings in this book were not bad, per se, but I didn't find them as nice to look at as those done by Henry E. Vallely (who seems to have illustrated quite a number of the Whitman books I've read).

Something I noticed in this book (and other Whitman mysteries may be the same, but I hadn't really noticed before now) is that the chapters are exceptionally long for a children's mystery.  The story is 246 pages in length, yet it only has 13 chapters.  The chapters run anywhere from 14 to 23 pages in length, which is somewhat longer than the chapters in children's mystery series from Cupples & Leon, Grosset & Dunlap, and and other publishers.  I don't think that had any effect on the story, but I did find it interesting to note.

This is a Whitman mystery that I would probably not recommend.  Now that I've seen a semi-theme with the Kathryn Heisenfelt books (that theme being "odd and not that great to read"), I'll likely be a bit choosier when picking up the Whitman mysteries - if I see one that is authored by her, I will probably put it back on the shelf!

RATING:  4 games of find the hidden clothespins out of 10 for at least giving readers a mystery that is a bit out of the ordinary and not just standard fare.

Courageous Wings - a New Prize Guild Library mystery

This book is the second of two flying stories that Mildred Wirt (Benson) wrote under The New Prize Guild Library banner of books.  The first was The Sky Racers (you can read my review here: The Sky Racers), indicated as book 10 of the collection on the back of the dust jacket for this book, while this book is listed as book 13 of the collection.  There are quite a number of classic books on this list, including some by Louisa May Alcott, Robert Luis Stevenson, Charlotte Bronte, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, and others.  Thus, Wirt must have felt some level of honor to have her books placed in the same category as such great writers.  It's just a shame these two books about young aviators were not on par with those other stories.

Courageous Wings is very similar in subject matter and plot to The Sky Racers, a fact I did not realize until I went back and looked at my review of that first book (which was nearly four years ago).  Both books deal with a young girl who is learning how to fly.  Both stories center around a competitor who is trying to sabotage the new invention of the girl's father.  Both books also feature a plane crash in the mountains.  The main differences are in the actual protagonists (in the first book, Jane Grant is eager to fly her father's plane, while in this story, Cleo Bowman, wants to fly, but at the last moment, becomes fearful until she is put in a position where she must fly a plane in order to save her father's life!) and the details surrounding the flights (Jane's father has entered a race, while Cleo's father is trying to rebuild a failed business by doing stunt flying with traveling circuses).

Oddly enough, the book opens not with the main character, but rather with Jim Sherman and Shorty Dawes, an airplane pilot and his mechanic.  While they do play a large part in the story as the supporting cast to Cleo and her father, Martin Bowman, they are just that - supporting characters.  So, I found it strange Wirt would begin the story with these two men, telling the story from Sherman's point of view.  Even when Cleo does make her appearance (p. 8) in the first chapter, the POV remains with Sherman through the first and second chapters. It it not until the third chapter, when Sherman, Dawes, and Cleo come face-to-face with Marcus Reman, a man claiming to be a friend of her father (but who turns out to be a thief who tries to break into the Bowmans' home safe) that the point-of-view begins to change to Cleo, and she takes more prominence in the story.

As with Jane Grant in The Sky Racers, Cleo Bowman in this book is not a very interesting character.  She is nowhere near as determined as Jane from the first book, and her indecisiveness regarding whether she will dare to fly a plane on her own quickly becomes tiresome.  Her doubt and constant questioning of herself is not something most people want to read in a story - they want their protagonists to be strong-willed, determined, and daring.  Perhaps Wirt was simply playing Cleo in this manner, so that when she does take to the sky, in a plane with which she is completely unfamiliar to boot!, her ability to overcome her own fears is meant to be all that more impactful.  Unfortunately, for me, it did not have any impact at all; rather, it was sort of like reaching a point of "Finally!"  

I will give Wirt some credit for creativity, however, as Cleo ultimately unravels the mystery of what really happened between her father and his former business partner that caused the split between them and pitted them as bitter rivals against one another.  This reveal does not provide a bit of a twist, as the person you think is truly behind everything turns out to be just another victim of a criminal determined to get revenge on a perceived slight years prior.  

One interesting thing I must point out is the use of Ardmore City in this book.  Ardmore City is where Jim Sherman and Shorty Dawes run a private airplane company, and it is where Cleo first meets the aviator and his mechanic.  I raise this point because Wirt also used "Ardmore" as the name of the college that Ruth Fielding attended in her series, and it was also the name of the college the girls in Ghost Gables were attending.  Makes one wonder what importance "Ardmore" had to Wirt, that she would use it again and again in various books.

Overall, it's not one of Wirt's better books.  Despite her later love of flying, it seems to me that Wirt's early books that dealt with aviation just did not have the same quality of stories and characters that her mystery stories did, as neither The Sky Racers nor Courageous Wings were good reads in my opinion.  Having never read the Ruth Darrow series, which I know is one of Wirt's earliest series, I cannot comment on those.

RATING:  4 long-endurance engines out of 10 for giving us an Oriental servant (Lee Sin) that, while definitely a stereotype, offered some humorous (and in some instances ingenious!) moments in the story.

Mary Perkins, On Stage - Volume Six

It's always a pleasure to come back to the next volume of Leonard Starr's famous newspaper strip.  I'm still in awe of the fact that Classic Comics Press has been able to gather ALL of the strips from the publications lengthy run and collect them into 15 volumes for fans to re-read after all these years.  The fact that so many of the strips (and original art!) survived all of these years is a feat in and of itself.  And so, after five volumes and just as many years worth of strips, picking up volume six is like starting the next season of a television show - getting ready to sit back and once again follow the lives of Mary Perkins, her husband, her manager, and all of the other supporting cast members who fill this fictional world of life in the theater!

Mary Perkins, On Stage volume six features the newspaper strips from March 10, 1963 through October 11, 1964.  As this volume opens with Mary and her husband, Pete, arriving home to New York, where they are met by Mary's manager, Nat Blessing, and his nephew, Webster Ivie.  Like the saying goes, there is no rest for the weary, and Nat already has Mary signed up for her next big project - a movie being filmed in France!  The subject of the movie is the "big European races," and the star is Joe Kulak, a famous actor that has even Mary weak in the knees.  But, as Nat so aptly informs his nephew, "The more magnificent the actor, the more magnificent the nut!"  And thus begins the latest adventure in the dramatic life of actress Mary Perkins.  She and Ivie fly to France, where they discover trouble is already brewing. Kulak is a self-indulgent, self-absorbed ladies man who has the irrational fear that the automobile made specifically for him for the film hates him!  What's worse, the mysterious Madame Bauer has also arrived in France, and she seems to enjoy taunting the actor.  Mary, on the other hand, becomes quite enamored with the sports car - which ultimately leads to disaster when Madame Bauer sabotages the car, thinking Kulak will be driving it!  This, of course, leads directly into the second story...

 

Before we look at the second story, though, I must make mention of the sports car, which becomes a very important character in the supporting cast of this story.  I know what you are thinking - a car is an inanimate object, so how could it be a character?  It's not like the car is alive (like a Transformer) or sentient (like Herbie, the Love Bug) - yet, Leonard Starr manages to give the car its own character, and all in a very natural way.  Readers only get glimpses of the car in the first few strips of this story, but in the March 21, 1963 strip, astute readers will notice something unique - while we can only see a small portion of the left front side, it is the headlight, cracked from the accident that occurred while Kulak was driving, that gives the appearance of an angry eye looking back at the ego maniacal driver.  From that moment forward, Starr manages to show how the car "feels" in such nuanced ways ... such as the car's front grill appearing to smile as Mary drives the car in the March 29th strip ... or the car growling when Kulak tries to start her in the March 31st strip (yet starting right up when Mary turns the key in the same Sunday strip).  Using shadows, angles, and other neat little artistic tricks, Starr manages to bring the car to life without actually giving it any unnatural elements - all of which add a humorous element to a strip that is so often steeped in drama.

And speaking of drama, plenty of that unfolds as Mary's story continues following her car accident.  Mary's face is disfigured, and the mysterious Dr. Bauer (does that name look familiar?  it should!) is the surgeon called in to repair the damage.  Only, the doctor has a morose view of beauty and love, based on his own relationship at home, and he fails to restore Mary's beauty in order to determine if her true nature is only skin deep.  "...if one is ugly, people often fail to look for the decent, sometimes beautiful person underneath! ... in the same way a beautiful face can blind us to the ugliness behind it!!"  A very poignant statement about human nature - which proves only too true when Pete arrives and make the startling revelation about Madame Bauer's true identity - for she is none other than Anya Kapek!  (Those with good memories might remember that Anya once tried to convince Mary she was actually Pete's wife....)  Dr. Bauer realizes his mistake and performs another surgery to restore Mary's beauty - and then takes his wife on a final journey to return her to her homeland ...

Meanwhile, Pete becomes involved in an entirely new story when he is trying to follow the Bauers.  When he stops to ask for directions, he stumbles across a mystery involving a gruff old man who seems to be hiding something ... or someone! ... from the world.  Before he leaves, though, an old photograph is thrown from an upstairs window - a photograph that Pete recognizes as the one photograph that set him off on his career as a photographer!  Kristin Kara was a famous actress, but a recluse who never allowed herself to be photograph - but she allowed Pete that one photo.  For that photo to show up so unexpectedly must mean something, and Pete is determined to learn what.  Their questions are soon answered when Kristin Kara shows up with the old man, Torwald Yavel, in tow.  Kara is ready to come out of retirement - but the twist is that it is really her daughter who is going to take to the stage, not Kara herself!  The mystery deepens, as there is something off about Kara's daughter, and Pete is determined to learn the truth.  Mary pretty much takes the backstage (no pun intended!) in this story, as Pete plays detective in order to help Kara and her daughter from what he believes to be the iron grip of Yavel. But, as Starr has proven time and again with his writing, everything is not always what is seems.

From here, Mary once again steps into the limelight, as she is offered the chance the chance of a lifetime to star as Ophelia in a production of Hamlet for live television.  Chapman Dane is involved, and everyone is excited at the prospect - especially Earl Falter, who is set to play Hamlet.  The oddball out is Adam Budd, who is cast as Laertes - until Dane, on his death bed, calls for Adam Budd, intending to give him the secret to becoming the greatest actor that ever lived!  Overnight, Budd becomes a sensation, and the whole world demands to know the secret that Dane passed on - but Budd won't say.  This only drives the public crazier, resulting in Budd taking Falter's place as Hamlet, which enrages Falter.  As it always seems to be, there is more drama going on backstage than on the actual stage!

The resolution of that tale leads right into the return of the infamous Johnny Q, who arrives in town at the same time a gangster by the name of Mr. Grinch is discovering he must do something quick to solve some tax problems he is having - and his lawyer suggests he invest in a God-awful play in order to lose money!  With Nat Blessing out of town, his nephew Ivie is in charge, and he suddenly finds himself in charge of a new play being completely financed by ... yup, you guessed it!  Obviously, things are not going to go well here.  Mary, of course, is cast, and even she can't make sense of this new play, "Below the Beneath."  But this is only a part of the story - for the theater where the play is rehearsing holds some sinister secrets, and when Mary stumbles across them, she finds herself the prisoner of a madman hiding beneath the theater itself!  It's up to Johnny Q to not only stop Mr. Grinch, but he must save Mary from the clutches of a theatrical maniac.

The final two stories in this volume are not quite as life-threatening, although they are life-changing for some of the characters.  The first gives us some insight into Mary's past, as she returns home to Holmesfield at the request of her childhood friend, Christy Chalmers.  It turns out Christy has become somewhat bitter as she has aged, having gained some weight and discovering she is no longer the "right type" to play the starlet in her local hometown plays.  Mary brings her some much needed encouragement, and before you know it, Christy starts exercising, dieting, and turning herself back into the beauty she once was - and Mary is able to get her friend a chance to act in New York!  Christy jumps at the chance, ready to leave her husband behind and begin a new life (one that includes the director!).  With a bit of prodding, however, Christy realizes that her husband has followed her all the way to New York just to be with her, and the two are reunited; while, unbeknownst to Mary, her agent is setting up her next acting gig with Maynard King, a producer with a rotten reputation.  In fact, he has a brutish bodyguard who sometimes uses force to rid King of any unpleasant visitors - including a man whose sister tried to kill herself after King promised to make her a star, then tossed her to the side for another actress.  Mary takes on the job despite King, and she soon becomes friends with a young woman named Holly.  But everything becomes tangled when Mary witnesses Kagle (the bodyguard) beat up someone, and as she prepares to give her statement to the police, Holly shows up and reveals she is Kagle's daughter!  This becomes another story that is less focused on Mary and more on Holly and her budding romance with King (who gives her a false name in order to stay safe from Kagle).  Holly and King ultimately run away to get married, but upon their return, and through a horrible mistake, Kagle knocks out his own daughter, thinking he is attacking her new husband!  King reveals his true feelings for Holly, and father and daughter are reunited, welcoming King into the family as Mary and Pete watch on...

The final panel of the October 11, 1964 strip teases readers with what is to come with the next story, as Morgana D'Alexius is seen waiting at the airport for the arrival of one Major Volkov - who will obviously be playing an important part in the next chapter of Mary Perkins' life!

As always, Starr's art in this volume is absolutely gorgeous.  His panels vary in detail, shading, and angle, setting the mood for each scene and drawing the reader's eyes to what is truly important in each panel.  His attention to even the most minute details, such as a basket of bread on the dinner table, or the curtains hanging in over a background window, is astounding, and his ability to keep each scene consistent with those that came before is awe-inspiring.  One thing I did notice in this volume is Starr's use of a bit of caricature with some of the villains - such as Yavel's almost Lurch-like appearance in the story about Kristin Kara, and Mr. Grinch's cartoon-gangster appearance (resembling some of the gangsters you might see from a Bugs Bunny cartoon, with the short stature, high forehead, and oversized lips).  I also noticed that with the storytelling, several of the stories moved Mary and Pete to the background, as other characters took center stage, with some strips not even featuring Mary or Pete at all!  While I realize that having only three panels in each daily strip leaves little room for advancing the story, it's odd to see three or more daily strips that do not feature the title character (such as the strips from December 16, 1963 through December 18, 1963, where Mary only appears very briefly in only two of the nine panels!).  But the stories are still quite engaging, and Starr manages to keep them fresh and unique (from car racing to jealous actors to gangster hi-jinks to monsters under the stage to a broken marriage).  Mary Perkins, On Stage is truly a fast-moving soap opera that definitely has me hooked for the long-run!

RATING:  10 booming blasts from a construction site out of 10 for taking the story of Mary Perkins to new heights, even going so far as to mar the beauty of the lead character for the sake of the story!

The Secret on Set - The Hayley Mysteries, Book 3

Well, I've reached the third final book in The Hayley Mysteries series.  This has been an enjoyable little series, and while aimed at early readers, it has still presented some fairly well-plotted mysteries that, I have no doubt, will make its intended audience really think to figure out.  The main character and her supporting cast are fleshed out nicely, and by the end of this book, you definitely have a feel for them (and find yourself wishing more stories were to be told!).  And the author, Hayley LeBlanc, is a social media star, and at only fourteen years old, she has already garnered a small level of "fame."  Whether she fully wrote these stories or simply developed the characters and plots, while others ghost-wrote the mysteries, we will likely never know - but it doesn't change the fact that the books are fun to read.

The Secret on Set has Hayley and her best friends (and co-stars in the show, Sadie Solves It) are preparing to film the Halloween episode of their series.  The producers have snagged a special guest star for the episode - Alex Vangoth, who is a widely celebrated actor, known mostly for the television show in which he plays a vampire.  Hayley is certain he will be playing a vampire in this episode, but neither she nor her friends are able to know for sure, since Alex manages to constantly avoid them, remaining aloof when he is forced to interact with them.  To make matters more stressful, a well-dressed man that Hayley is certain is a television exec begins appearing on the set, and she wonders if he has heard about the trouble they have previously had (in the last two books) and is considering cancelling the show.

And that's when things start happening.  Items of clothing disappear from the wardrobe department.  Food goes missing from the craft services table.  Props are moved around on set just prior to filming.  Schedule changes are misplaced and not given out, causing actors to miss their call times.  And the newest production assistant, Kara, seems to be in the middle of everything, as she has been spotted in several places where the incidents have occurred.  She insists she is innocent, but after one too many mishaps, she is fired from the show.  Hayley, Cody, and Aubrey believe Kara, and they begin to look for clues that will lead them to the real culprit.  Is is Alex Vangoth, who is unhappy about having to do this show?  Is it the TV exec that Hayley has seen, wanting to see the show fail?  Could it have anything to do with the super-secret movie that is being filmed in complete secrecy just a few sound stages away?  Or is there someone else prowling around in the sound stage?

 

Oh, and what about the disappearing dead bodies?!   Yes, you heard that right.  Hayley pretty much stumbles across a body in an empty sound stage, but when she brings back security, the body is gone.  Then a second body is discovered and disappears.  And a third.   There is definitely something strange going on, and Hayley and her friends are dead-set on finding out what it is!

 

I have to wonder what further adventures Hayley, Cody, and Aubrey could have had if this series had continued.  The idea of a teen sleuth who is also a television star is somewhat different (we've had nurse sleuths, stewardess sleuths, theatre sleuths, sister sleuths, brother sleuths, reporter sleuths, and so on, but I can't think off-hand of a sleuth who was also a television star, unless you count the Whitman authorized editions from back in the day), and having mysteries set in and around a movie studio could have had countless opportunities for mysteries to pop-up!  But, alas, we shall never know, as The Hayley Mysteries seems to have been retired after this third entry.  What a shame...

 

RATING:  9 empty coffins out of 10 for a great case of mistaken identity, disappearing bodies, and sabotage all rolled into one!

The Cases of Susan Dare

It's not often that I pick up and read a vintage "adult" novel - most of the "grown-up" mysteries or sci-fi/fantasy books that I read are recent publication.  But once in a great while, an older book will catch my fancy, so I'll pick it up and give it a shot.  Such is the case with this one.  I can't tell you where I first came across this book, character, or title, but I knew that I wanted it - and I searched quite a while before I found a decent copy in dust jacket in fairly good condition.  A female detective is sure to spark my interest, and the name alone - "Susan Dare" - was enough to pique my curiosity.  So, I bought it and finally sat down to read it.

The Cases of Susan Dare is a collection of six short tales written by Mignon C. Eberhart.  This is Eberhart's only short-story collection, but this author, dubbed "America's Agatha Christie," was quite prolific - she wrote mystery novels published from 1929 all the way to 1988 - that's some career!  From what I found online, her mysteries mostly featured female protagonists (yay!), and it appears she only wrote one series, the Sarah Keate mysteries (consisting of seven books, the first five of which were made into films!).  Thus, it looks like I picked an author whose books I will definitely be hunting down!  Especially the Sarah Keate mysteries, if they are anywhere near as well written as the Susan Dare stories (plus I need to see if any of those movies have ever made it to DVD...).

Susan Dare is a mystery writer who somehow finds herself at the scene of a murder time and time again, and it falls upon her to figure out these seemingly unsolvable cases.  Unlike so many female sleuths of today, who are fearless, determined, and seek out mysteries to solve, Susan Dare is a reluctant sleuth.  She is hesitant to become involved and is usually coerced into it; she becomes weak-kneed  and fearful when she realizes who the killer is, afraid she may be the next victim; and she tries so hard to stay away from situations that could potentially become dangerous (and yet, there she is again and again put into those very situations!).  Despite these drawbacks, Susan Dare is a very likable character with realistic flaws that would be present in a real person (let's face it - how many mystery authors would REALLY want to find themselves faced with a dead body and the task of figuring out who the killer is?!).

The six short stories were originally published in 1934 in The Delineator, which was an American women's magazine published in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  From what I could find, it appears the stories were first collected into book form in 1935, although the book I has a publication date of October 1942, so it is clearly a later edition.  Each story is 47-53 pages in length, but they are each complete mysteries, although admittedly, in most of them, the reader does not actually get to see the killer brought to justice - we simply see Susan solving the crime and revealing the identity to the police for them to apprehend.  That does not make them any less interesting, nor any less satisfying, though.  In fact, the brevity of the tales and the lack of final "resolution," so to speak, actually adds to the mystique of the stories.  Oh, and I should probably mention that Susan does have a cohort of sorts, a young reporter by the name of Jim Byrne, who she turns to often to help rescue her from the dangerous situations in which she finds herself.

"Introducing Susan Dare" is the first story, in which readers meet Susan Dare, who is visiting with a dear friend, Christabel.  When Christabel's former love interest turns up dead in the estate's library, Susan finds herself questioning which of Christabel's family who live on the estate could have killed the man in cold blood.  "Spider" tells the tale of a young woman who is overcome by fear in her own home.  When the woman's adopted sister is killed, it appears the young woman is the only possible suspect, Susan must uncover the truth before the wrong person goes to jail.  In the "Easter Devil," a wicked-looking carved idol is believed to be the source of all the trouble happening in the Denistry home - but the one who killed the family's butler is not finished, and Susan tries a desperate ploy to trap the killer before he or she strikes again.  "The Claret Stick" is one of my favorite stories, being set in the theater, where Susan must figure out how the leading man was killed on an empty stage, with no one present.  (This story kind of reminded me of the Nancy Drew TV episode from the '70s show, "A Haunting We Will Go")  "The Man Who Was Missing" takes Susan to a boarding house, where a woman's fiance has disappeared, and although everyone else believes he simply got cold feet, Susan begins to suspect foul play may be involved and must find a way to prove it.  And the final story, "The Calico Dog," features a case of two men both claiming to be the son and heir to an older widow, who wants nothing more than to be reunited with her real son who disappeared some 20 years prior - but one of them is a fraud, and when the woman's trusted family friend turns up murdered, Susan must figure out if one of the men claiming to be the son is a murderer!

Reading these stories, I could easily envision them being weekly episodes of a television show.  I'm actually surprised no one has ever picked up on that idea, as the name and character truly lend themselves to an ongoing serial drama about a female writer who solves murders (hmmm ... maybe someone did happen across that idea and simply turned it into a show starring Angela Lansbury ...).  In any event, the stories were well-written, engaging, and filled with plenty of suspense and surprises - and I'll readily admit that despite my years of reading mysteries, several of these stories had me stumped!  Definitely a recommended read for mystery lovers!

RATING:  10 ropes and pulleys holding the flys and drops out of 10 for superbly written murder mysteries with a fantastic "new" lady detective.

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!