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!