The Penny Nichols Series - #2 - Penny Nichols and the Mystery of the Lost Key

The second Penny Nichols mystery offers up a somewhat standard mystery trope, but I have to give Mildred Wirt (Benson) credit - she provides a totally unique story to go with it.  While I read these Penny Nichols books some years ago when I first bought them, I honestly don't remember them being this good.  Also, having never read a Penny Parker book at the time, I did not realize just how much of a precursor Penny Nichols is to Penny Parker.  The similarities are many - hair color, relationship with father, car problems, desire to follow in her father's footsteps, attitude, daring willingness, and so much more - heck, even the first name is the same (Penny is short for "Penelope" in both cases!).  Perhaps the Penny Parker series is more or less what Penny Nichols may have been if her series had been allowed to continue beyond just the four books.

Penny Nichols and the Mystery of the Lost Key is a story about a haunted house.  But it's also a story about a young girl's lost inheritance.  And a story about a lost key that could be the "key" to proving an heir's identity (pun intended).  And a story about a cranky caretaker who seems to be keeping a lot of secrets.  Once again, Wirt (writing this series under the Joan Clark pen name) creates an intricate web of lies, secrets, and mysteries that only the sharpest sleuth could possibly solve - and this time, the sleuth is Penny Nichols!  After stopping a ring of car thieves in her first book, Penny sets out to help a young girl stake a claim for her rightful inheritance after she receives a mysterious letter, which has enclosed therewith a key to the property, Raven Ridge, she is alleged to have inherited.  Penny has her suspicions, however, because she has never heard of the attorney on the letterhead, and a visit to the office address proves no such attorney exists!  So, who sent young Rosanna Winters the letter and key, and more importantly, why?

Well, Penny gets her chance when her father decides they need a vacation - and he elects to go to Mt. Ashland, which is a short drive from Snow Mountain, the very place where Raven Ridge is located (p. 40).  Just what would a children's mystery book be without its ever-present convenient coincidences.  Needless to say, Penny invites Rosanna on the trip so they can check out Raven Ridge and figure out exactly what that letter is about.  The only problem is, Rosanna has lost the letter and the key she received to prove her claim as an heir!  They arrive at Raven Ridge in the middle of a dreadful storm (Wirt definitely loved her storms!), and before long, two more "heirs" show up - a rather rude woman and her entitled daughter, as well as a man who looks awfully similar to the thief that Penny saw steal jewelry at the department store where she first met Rosanna!  Both have letters and keys, just like Rosanna had, and both feel they are the sole heir and owner of Raven Ridge.  The rather curmudgeonly caretaker does not take kindly to any of the unwanted visitors, and he does not believe any of them have a true claim to the property - in fact, he is rather insistent that the owner is not dead, but merely away on a trip.

The mystery is a tangled web, no doubt - the mysterious music coming from the attic ... the disappearing ghost ... the secret panels and hidden passages behind the walls (not to mention the hidden staircase, but we wouldn't want to compare that to a certain mystery of Nancy Drew, now would we?) ... the missing photograph ... the gun found in a suitcase ... the safe hidden behind a painting ... so many strange things, and it's up to Penny to piece together the puzzle and figure out exactly what is going on.  Quite frankly, this is a mystery that is worthy of the queen of crime herself, Agatha Christie!  But, as usual, Penny manages to figure out exactly what happened to Jacob Winters, exact who the real heirs are, and who is the true culprit trying to swindle the others out of their rightful inheritance - and along the way, Penny reunites two family members and provides Rosanna with a new home! All's well that ends well, right?

"If it hadn't been for that kid of yours I'd have gotten away with it," the crook growled [at Mr. Nichols] (p. 241).  A simple statement, but one that brought a smile to my face, as it immediately made me think of all those criminals who were unmasked by the Scooby gang in the cartoons for all those years.

One final observation - on the very last page, just after the last word of the last paragraph, there are two initials:  "M.W."  Obviously, they represent "Mildred Wirt."  I don't recall every seeing any books that had initials like this at the end of the story (or, if I have, I don't recall them now).  Was this Wirt signing off on her final draft of the story, and the printers accidentally included it when they typeset the book?  Since the series is authored under the pseudonym of Joan Clark, was this Wirt's way of attributing her own name to the authorship of the story?  

This was a great follow-up to Wirt's first Penny Nichols' mystery, and I am anxious to see what the next two books hold in store!

RATING:  10 postcards from Africa out of 10 for taunting readers with a haunted house on a dark and stormy night - creating the perfect mood for a superbly written mystery!