Sometimes you come across a series, and despite your promises not to pick up any new series, you just can't help yourself. This series is one of those times. I came across the first book at a used book store, and the cover art and the lettering of "A Cassandra Mystery" caught my eye, and the description seemed too good to pass up. And after a quick search online revealed there were only four books in the series, I figured I might as well. Needless to say, it didn't take me long to find the other three books on eBay, and I now have the complete series. So, I figured it was time to start reading them.
Ticket to Danger is the first book and introduces readers to Cassandra Best - an eighteen-year old girl whose real name is Cassandra Best Jones. "Cassandra Best" is the identity she has created for herself while writing to her pen-pal in England, a fellow teenager by the name of Alexandra Bennett (a name that we will look more into later). Alexandra's family is quite wealthy, having their own estate, and Cassandra wanted to create a life where she was of similar stature in society - it's not like she was ever going to cross the ocean and meet her pen-pal face-to-face. Until, of course, Alexandra invites her to England to attend her debut ball, set to take place in just a few weeks! Cassandra is debating on how to tell her new friend the truth, that she can't afford the trip, when Alexandra sends her a round-trip ticket (first class!) to England, along with some cryptic messages about a possible mystery afoot! Cassandra desperately wants to go, but she is afraid the truth will come out and her pen-pal will hate her for lying. Her grandmother convinces her to take the trip, so off she goes, hoping she can pull off the performance of her life as Cassandra Best!
The author creates quite a Gothic element to the story, with the young woman far from home, placed in a completely new setting where shadows and danger lurk around every corner, and where she has no idea who she can trust. The book shows the author as Jennifer Austin, but nothing online verifies this is an actual person. Jennifer White's blog lists the name as a pseudonym (Series Books for Girls), and since there seems to be nothing to be found on this "author," I'm likely to agree. It would be interesting to find the creator and/or author of this series, as there are some elements to it that could potentially be homages to other series - such as the Inspector from Scotland Yard is "Inspector Crandall" - and Crandall is the last name of the headmistress from the Dana Girls series (another series for girls published by Grosset & Dunlap previous to this).
But an even greater homage is the name of Cassandra's pen-pal - Alexandra Bennett. In the original Dark Shadows television show, which was a Gothic soap opera in the late '60s about a young woman who travels to a place she's never been, to meet people she's never seen (see - I told you it sounded familiar!) and ends up in a castle-like manor with plenty of dark shadows around every corner, the main character was portrayed by actress Alexandra Moltke - and the matriarch of the family in that show was portrayed by actress Joan Bennett. So, when I see the name "Alexandra Bennett" connected with a story about an old English manor where a young woman has shown up and must solve the mystery involving the disappearance of an heiress, well, it's only natural that I would question whether the author was a fan of Dark Shadows!
All of that aside, the mystery itself was quite engaging. Like any good British mystery, there are secret panels, hidden passages, characters that take an instant dislike to Cassandra, a skittish groundskeeper, an Inspector who wants Cassandra to stay out of the investigation, and plenty of cultural differences to keep Cassandra just a bit off-balance as she tries to figure out what happened to Alexandra and how it connects to the family's heirloom - a ruby and diamond necklace that once belonged to Anne Boleyn! The author manages to throw in some great misdirection, and with several possible suspects and motives, it is not an easy solve. There are a number of typical foibles (Cassandra gets knocked out, she gets run off the road, she gets kidnapped, etc.) and plenty of danger and excitement (Cassandra drives a car directly into the path of an oncoming plane in the hopes of preventing it from taking off!) before she manages to find Alexandra, locate the stolen necklace, and bring the criminals to justice.
This series seems to follow on the footsteps of other attempts to create new female detectives around that time period, such as Susan Sand (eight books published from 1982-84) and Diana Winthrop (six books published from 1983-85). But, as with the other two series, it was not destined to last, and it only managed to see four books published. The writing is not bad, and the main character is actually rather unique (basically coming into being as a detective through a fantasy-life created for a pen-pal). Unlike so many young adult detectives, who either have lost one or both of their parents, Cassandra has a full family - mother and father, as well as a younger sister and a grandmother - to support her. But, for whatever reason, the series did not make it, and we are left to enjoy the ones that we have.
Something I did enjoy about the book is that there were internal illustrations (similar to the Susan Sand books). Ann Meisel provided the cover art and the interior illustrations, and she IS a real artist, who is still around today. The black and white penciled interior illustrations remind me of Ruth Sanderson's work in the Nancy Drew books from the early '80s, insomuch as they are very full and detailed, and there are no harsh angles or lackluster backgrounds that some of the later Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books published by Grosset & Dunlap featured.
I'm curious to see if the remaining three books of the series are as enjoyable as this first!
RATING: 8 servings of Yorkshire pudding out of 10 for introducing readers to a unique, new amateur sleuth in a great first mystery!
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