Crossed Trails in Mexico - the third Mexican Mystery Stories for Girls

I finally tracked down a copy of the third and final Mexican Mystery Stories for Girls by Helen Randolph, complete with dust jacket.  I always find myself hesitating to read a book that I know to be the last book in a series, particularly when I've grown to like the characters in the stories.  In the first book, I met Peggy and Jo Ann, who were visiting their friend, Florence, in Mexico and followed along as they investigated a mysterious window and uncover a hidden treasure.  In the second book, the three girls are still in Mexico, and they are able to reunite a young boy (Carlitos) with his real family and stop a thief from stealing the boy's rightful inheritance.  While neither book was exceptional, they were both fairly decent reads, and I did rather enjoy the characters.  So, now, I've had the chance to read their final adventure together, and I would say it pretty much measures up to the previous two books.

Crossed Trails in Mexico actually opens with the three girls in the United States, making their way to Mexico with young Carlitos and his spinster aunt, Prudence Eldridge (referred to as "Miss Prudence" throughout the story).  I did like the fact that the author, Helen Randolph (the pseudonym for two women - Virginia Fairfax and Helen Allan Ripley [according to Jennifer White's webpage, Helen Randolph]), continues the continuity from one book to the next, and in this one, Randolph provides a bridge between the books, explaining how after Carlitos was rescued in the last book, his uncle Edward Eldridge, brought the young boy to Massachusetts to live with Miss Prudence and learn English (pp. 10-11).  Readers are also treated to a brief synopsis, via dialogue among the girls, as to their school year at Evanston High in Mississippi, going so far as to admit the girls are "four or five pounds heavier" (p. 9).  I found this remark rather humorous, considering most girls never want to add weight, let alone admit it!  They are returning to Mexico for their summer vacation, using the car they were able to purchase at a bargain (p. 8), which is comically named "Jitters" (pp. 7-8).  The vehicle is a character in and of itself, as the girls are always concerned whether it will make the trip or not, and remarks are made about the fact it cannot travel very fast at all.  

Jo Ann is anxious for another mystery, and sure enough, one presents itself before they even get out of the United States.  While staying overnight at a hotel in Houston, Texas, Jo Ann overhears a man's phone conversation in another room.  The man's statement - "I'm afraid I'm going to lose my life before this is over" (p. 16) - sets off alarms in Jo Ann's head, and she begins to worry about what it means.  Is he a criminal or a detective?  What would cause him to lose his life?  She gets a good look at the tall, setalwart man wearing a broad-brimmed tan felt hat (p. 16) when he steps out of his room and catches her eavesdropping!  As fate would have it, when the girls leave the next morning, Jo Ann spots the man in a car going the same direction as them; unfortunately, though, Miss Prudence forces them to turn a different route, believing it not prudent to follow after a man who thinks he will be murdered (p. 20).  So, the girls think they have seen the last of this mystery man...

A chance meeting with a coast guard who tells the girls stories about smugglers sneaking things across the border from Mexico to the United States sets the girls off on an entirely different mystery.  The guard's stories become reality when the girls have to stop the car to find water for their overheating engine and happen upon another stopped car, empty except for the large quantity of pottery and baskets in the back of the car.  Jo Ann and Florence agree that the owner(s) of the car could very well be the smugglers the coast guard was telling them about earlier.  And, of course, it turns out they are.  So, it should come as no surprise that when the girls, along with Miss Prudence and Carlitos, make it to their final destination, not only do they discover a destitute Mexican woman who is making pottery and selling it to the smugglers, but they also spot that mysterious man again (who, it turns out, happens to be a detective on the trail of those smugglers).  The girls insinuate themselves into the investigation and ultimately aid the detective in luring the smugglers into the open and capturing them.  Their invaluable assistance warrants the government buying them a brand new car to replace Jitters (which was stolen by the smugglers and ran off a cliff!) - and they christen their new car "Prudence" after their chaperone, because the car is "so shining and spotlessly clean.  And besides, that name might help Jo to be more prudent - less reckless" (p. 249).

While all three girls play a part in this mystery, I found it odd that Florence is portrayed as very timid and fearful throughout the entire book.  I do not recall her being so afraid of everything in the previous books, and while Jo Ann has always been the more gung-ho girl of the trio, Florence was never one to back away from helping out.  That aside, I did enjoy seeing the couple who initially cared for Carlitos after his parents died, and it is amusing to watch them interact with Miss Prudence, who finds the accommodations in Mexico not quite what she is used to in her New England home, and so she sets about cleaning and brightening the adobe in order to make it more "acceptable" to her.  As Miss Prudence puts it, "a peon housekeeper's ideas of cleaning and an American's are two different things" (p. 102), once again reminding readers that this book was written in a very different time period!  At least this book seems to have a lot less racial slurs as do the prior volumes in this series.  But more surprising is the author's use of brand names, as Miss Prudence lists off the items she will need for cleaning purposes:  "I must fumigate this whole house, clean it with Old Dutch Cleansor, Lysol - -" (p. 98).  These series book rarely use brand names like that, so it was a shock to find them so casually referenced.

There is an instance in the story, though, that reminds of the later Stratemeyer books, where Harriet [Stratemeyer Adams] persisted in putting educational diatribes throughout the books she wrote.  When the girls are discussing the mine owned by Mr. Eldridge, Jo Ann mentions how eager she is to see how the "malacate" works.  When asked what that is, Jo Ann goes into an explanation of how that is "a windlass arrangement that draws the ore up out of the mine.  A rawhide bag is tied to the end of a long cable and let down into the shaft.  Using electricity is a vast improvement over the old way" (p. 179).  In English, the word translates to a "winch" or "spindle."  

For as beautifully painted as the cover art is, that sole interior illustration (in the Saalfield edition, which is what I have), which is intended to mimic the cover, is far from beautiful.  It is a half-hearted attempt to recreate the cover at best.  And since these books rarely identify the cover and/or interior artist(s), we do not know who to blame for the lesser quality work.

It's a shame the series ended with this book.  While definitely not the best series I've ever read, it was nowhere near the worst.  The three main characters are likable, with distinct personalities, and their adventures are rather enjoyable.  But, having put a stop to the smuggling ring, Jo Ann, Peggy, and Florence reached the end of their sleuthing career, and they will forever remain a memory of the distant past...

RATING:  7 pairs of Mexican sandals out of 10 for rounding out this series with a fairly decent mystery in keeping with the Mexican theme.