Penny Parker Mystery Stories No. 10 - Ghost Beyond the Gate

What better way to close out the month of October than to read a Penny Parker mystery? This series has truly been a joy to read, and while not all of the stories have been outstanding (some have only been "good," while others have only been "great"), this one definitely stands out as one of the outstanding ones.  The story reads much like an adult mystery, rather than one aimed at children.  As the series progresses, it is evident Mildred A. Wirt (Benson) has gotten a better feel not only for her characters, but also for writing mysteries that are more dangerous and more complicated, dealing with some very real issues that were being faced by her readers at that time.

Ghost Beyond the Gate, published in 1943, is the tenth book in the series.  The mystery involves not only a black market tire scheme (a very real thing during World War II!), but also centers around Penny's father, Anthony Parker, who has disappeared.  The story opens with Penny and her best friend, Louise, enjoying a ride in Penny's homemade iceboat, aptly named the Icicle, on the frozen Big Bear River (p. 1).  Of course, there is a mishap, and the girls, although having a great time, have to pull the boat back to the car, parked at the Riverview Yacht Club (p. 3).  It is there they discover Penny's car is missing - and they find it pushed over into a nearby ditch, all of its tires missing!  It turns out there is a huge market for tires right now (during the war), and so a gang of thieves are stealing and re-selling tires to individuals who need them and can't get them due to the government's ban on sales of new tires (p. 36).  As it turns out, this actually occurred back in the early 1940s, when the U.S. government placed a ban on the sale of new tires for automobiles at the end of 1941, which resulted in the black market flourishing!

If this story sounds somewhat familiar (as it did to me), well, that's because Wirt used a very similar plt in her first Penny Nichols book, Penny Nichols Finds a Clue (you can find my review of that book here: Penny Nichols Finds a Clue).  In that book, there was a ring of tire thieves who were stealing not just tires, but also other car parts as well and re-selling them on the black market.  In any event, in this book, Penny's father is planning to expose the criminals; however, on his way to see the state prosecutor, Mr. Parker is involved in an automobile accident and literally disappears!  A witness claims a woman drove by and offered him a ride to the hospital (p. 43), but after an exhaustive search, it turns out Mr. Parker was never admitted to any hospital in Riverview!  So, where did he go?  And did his disappearance have anything to do with the evidence he had with him that would put an end to the tire thieves' activities?  What is interesting here is that the only person who had knowledge of what evidence Mr. Parker possessed was Jerry Livingston, the Star's star reporter.  But he took a much-needed vacation to the Canadian wilds before heading into the Army Air Corps in just a few weeks (p. 33).  I have to wonder what the full extend of Wirt's connection to Canada is, because it seems she uses Canadian locations in quite a number of her personally written books.

So, now with two mysteries on her hands - the tire thieves and her missing father, Penny must work overtime to figure out what is going on.  But Wirt doesn't stop there.  With her father gone, and the Star's editor in the hospital with appendicitis, assistant editor Harley Schirr has taken over the publishing of the newspaper.  Penny is suspicious of the man, because he has been insistent that Mr. Parker will not be found, and is even likely to be dead!  When Schirr fires the paper's elevator operator, Penny uses her position as Mr. Parker's daughter to get him reinstated, reminding Schirr that "Only Dad's money is invested here..." (p. 67).  She then catches him going through her father's safe (p. 72), which results in her "firing" the assistant editor (p. 74)!  The staff of the paper sides with Penny, and before you know it, she's running her father's paper, while still trying to figure out where her father is.

Now, here's where the story really heats up.  Penny actually goes to the police for help (can you believe it?  a children's mystery series protagonist actually going to the police for assistance?!), and they encourage her to offer a $5,000 reward for information on Mr. Parker (p. 86).  That may not sound like too much by today's standards, but if you think about the fact that this book was published back in 1943, that amount would equate to $88,956 in today's dollar!  That's quite a lot of money for Mr. Parker!  Oh, and it is around this point that Penny first sees the "ghost" that the elevator operator told her about - a white-robed figure that paced back and forth in front of what everyone says is an abandoned house (p. 95).  It seems like yet one more mystery to add to Penny's plate - until she gets a possible clue to her father's whereabouts, and discovers the woman who holds that clue happens to be staying at that very same house!  And to further connect the mysteries, Penny also believes the ghost haunting that house is none other than her own father (p. 140).

The mystery is definitely a complicated one, and Wirt pulls out all the stops.  There is definitely a lot of danger involved - not necessarily for Penny, but definitely for her father - especially when he is inadvertently turned over to the very criminals that he was threatening to expose before he disappeared!  Wirt plays up a few "bait and switch" plot devices, leading readers to believe certain things about a couple of the characters, and then reveals them to be exactly the opposite by the end of the story.  And Penny's iceboat at the beginning was not just a quirky way to the start the story - that boat plays a very important part near the climactic moments of the tale, particularly with respect to restoring Mr. Parker's memory (did I mention he had amnesia due to the car accident?).  

As with most of her books, Wirt plays very loose with her timelines in the story.  Jerry Livingston is said to be heading into the Army Air Corp in just "a couple of weeks" (p. 33).  Yet, the events of the story take place over the course of at least two weeks, if not longer, and then Mr. Parker's recovery takes another week or more, and after the criminals are caught, Penny is worried Jerry may not make it home in time to testify at the trial (p. 207), which would have to be at least several weeks out (since no trial occurs immediately after a criminal is arrested).  So, all-in-all, Jerry was gone for at least a month or more before returning to Riverview - which leaves one to wonder what the Air Corp had to say about him not showing up in that "couple of weeks" time frame!

One thing I did find rather amusing in the book is that early in the story, Penny sits down for breakfast and has "orange juice, two slices of toast, four pancakes, and then, somewhat concerned lest she lose her slim figure, debated whether to ask for another helping" (p. 30).  That's quite a hefty breakfast!  Yet, later in the book, after her father has been missing for what we can assume is at least a week or more, Wirt writes that "Penny had lost so much weight she looked thin and sallow" (p. 126).  Thus, in the span of just 100 pages, Penny goes from being ravenous and worrying about her weight to being "thin and sallow."  That's quite a change in such a short period of time.

There's also a remark made by the deskman at the Star that caught my attention. When Penny inquires as to whether anyone has sighted her father, the deskman responds with, "Your father's been seen in every section of the city from the RIVER to the HEIGHTS" [emphasis added] (p. 121).  Of course, everyone knows Nancy Drew lives in River Heights, and Benson wrote a number of the early Nancy Drew books, so this is obviously a little nod to Benson's other work - and if it's not, then that's an awfully funny coincidence!

Again, this series just seems to get better and better with each book, and I can definitely see why Benson felt these books were among her favorite to write!

RATING:  10 snow white bathrobes out of 10 for providing a suspenseful mystery without the life-threatening chapter cliffhangers, but with plenty of danger and distress to keep the pages turning!