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.