The Sherlock Society (Book One of the Sherlock Society mysteries)

This is another book that came to me as a recommendation.  I had it on my Amazon watchlist already, but I did not buy it until James Keeline gave me the heads up that the author, James Ponti set the book in South Florida.  I was aware Ponti was a Florida resident, but I did not know he was giving us a series set in my home state, so I went online and made the purchase.  I was even more excited to see that Amazon already had the second book available for pre-order!  Keeline told me that the writing of this book was "a cut above most juveniles," so I definitely went into it with high hopes.  I mean, how could it possibly fail - Sherlock, Florida, mystery, children's series - such a fantastic combination!  Well, as the old saying goes, don't judge a book by its cover...

 

The Sherlock Society introduces a group of three middle school children who are getting ready to spend their summer vacation doing the normal things to earn money - babysitting, moving lawns, etc.  Alex Sherlock and his two friends, Lina and Yadi, are not looking forward to the prospects; but they are enjoying the escape room that the school librarian created for them, giving them some fun puzzles to solve within a limited time in order to "escape" the library.  What they did not expect is for Alex's sister, Zoe, to show up and help them work together to "escape" before the time expired!  And even more shocking is Zoe's idea to form a detective club for the summer, to earn money doing something they love!  Enter: the Sherlock Society!

 

I was truly looking forward to an intricate mystery, filled with plenty of riddles and clues; however, what I got was a travelogue of South Florida with snippets of one mystery that gets dumped in exchange for another mystery half-way through the book.  Perhaps it is because I live in Florida, but I got quickly bored with all of the detailed descriptions of Miami,  Biscayne Bay, Alligator Alley, the Everglades, and the surrounding areas, along with considerable exposition about the history of these locations.  And when they made the decision to search for Al Capone's missing millions, allegedly buried somewhere in South Florida, I was actually rather intrigued.  The crew began following up on various clues they were uncovering - but when they reached the place where they believe the money was hidden away, suddenly the entire focus of the mystery changed - the search for Al Capone's treasure was dropped, and the Sherlock Society began searching for who was illegally dumping dangerous waste materials into the Everglades.  So, instead of searching for money that would make them wealthy (in their minds), they decide to save the environment and hunt down the men who are killing the animal and plant life of the Everglades.

 

Do you see the more than obvious morality lesson here?

 

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for saving the environment, and I do believe those who are illegally and purposefully dumping deadly waste into rivers and lakes should be ferreted out and punished.  What I do not particularly enjoy is when a good children's mystery is overtly written to push that idea.  At least Ponti did not have the kids completely give up on Al Capone's missing millions, as the very last chapter of the book has them stumble upon the possible location of the money - perhaps a lead-in to the second book?  (No, checking the description for Hurricane Heist on Amazon, which is set to be released in September, it appears that book has nothing to do with Capone's money.)  It simply feels like a bait and switch - here's a great mystery about missing money with some interesting clues to be discovered along the way - but wait, no, let's forget that mystery so I can teach you a lesson about caring for the environment!

 

With that being said, I did rather enjoy the characters - Ponti breathes life into them that makes them very readable and relatable.  Alex is your typical young teen, ready to jump the gun and get into the action.  Lina is the booksmart fish-out-of-water Midwestern girl, who knows how to research with a thirst for knowledge.  Yadi is the aspiring film maker, with some great devices to help the Society using modern technology (although the constant references to him being a "conspiracy theorist" because of some of his beliefs felt more like a political statement than a characterization).  Zoe is the not-so-stereotypical teenage girl frustrated with her parents for not allowing her to go to camp with her friends, but who learns what true friendship is within the Sherlock Society that she forms!  And Grandpa (the kids' mother's father) is a real hoot - helping the Society as their driver, but ultimately getting them into trouble by letting his own love of adventure take them into some very dangerous territory.  All of the characters (including Mr. and Mrs. Sherlock) play well off of one another, and Ponti creates a diverse, real-world cast that help save the story from being a complete failure.

 

Oh, and I must say - if you are hoping the book will have a lot of references to Sherlock Holmes, based on the title (which is actually a reference to the main characters' last name - Alex and Zoe Sherlock), you will be disappointed.  Sure, there are a few references scattered throughout, but not at much as one would expect.

 

Based on this book, I will not be picking up any further books in the series.  Perhaps the next book, and those that follow, will feature better stories than this one, and if that is the case, then great!  I certainly wish Ponti success with the series.  But I have enough ongoing mystery series, both children's series and adult series, that I find much more enjoyable and readable.  I gave it a shot, and it simply did not meet up to my expectations, particularly given the recommendation I received.

 

RATING:  5 well-loved books on botany out of 10 for creating a fun new cast of young sleuths who (hopefully!) will solve some great mysteries in the future.

Hurricane Nurse - a Berkley orginal romance novel

I am not one for romance novels, but I happened across this book at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair a few years back.  I remember being curious about it, because with "hurricane" in the title, I figured it must have a Florida setting.  The price was a bit on the high side, so I passed it up.  The next year, I saw that the seller had the same book at the same price - meaning it clearly was not selling for the price he was asking, so I held off.  When I hit the book fair this year, you guessed it - the book was still with the seller, having not sold now for three years.  I made an offer, which the seller took, and I became the proud owner of a nurse / romance novel set in the southernmost part of Florida.  Now the question became - would I enjoy the book?

hurricane nurse (and yes, the title is actually spelled with small letters, not capitals) does not actually begin in Florida; rather, the reader is introduced to Betsy Stockwell and her father, Dr. Cal, in their hometown of Atlanta, where Dr. Cal is quite the famous surgeon at the local hospital.  When he has a serious heart attack, Besty is told her father must go someplace to convalesce where he can get plenty of rest and sunshine - hence, he is shipped off to Blue Heron Cay just off the Florida Keys (NOTE - there is no such place as "Blue Heron Cay," although, as we all know, the Florida Keys, and Key West in particular, are very real places).  Betsy, whose mother died when she was young and who is very close to her father (gee, what titian-haired detective does that sound like?), feels duty-bound to go with him, and thus, she must postpone her planned marriage to Dr. Paul Norbert, who is a bit hurt, but understands and promises to wait for her (yeah, like we don't already know that's not going to happen...).

Based on the title, I was expecting that once Nurse Betsy arrived in the Florida Keys, a horrific hurricane would come through, and she would be put to the test with her nursing skills helping out people injured due to the horrific storms that swipe through the area.  I mean, the cover gives the idea that in the middle of the storm, a shirtless man is carrying an injured woman to Betsy, so that she can administer first aid during the dangerous conditions.  The actual story, however, deals very little with the hurricane that does eventually come through - a hurricane that does very little damage.  There is a young girl who is injured when she crawls under her house trying to rescue her kitting just as the storm hits (this would be the young girl in the arms of the man on the cover - but in the story, the man is not shirtless, and Betsy is not outside waiting for him); but that is truly the only "drama" associated with the hurricane.

The main gist of the story is the hate/love relationship between Betsy and the island doctor who is watching over her father's recover, Dr. Mark Everett.  While Dr. Everett is congenial and friendly with Dr. Cal, he is aloof and downright rude to Betsy from the get-go.  She immediately resents the man to the point of almost hating him.  But, of course, as with any typical soap opera romance story, Dr. Everett has a secret in his past that, when Betsy learns what it is, paints the man in a whole new light, and she soon finds herself falling for him despite her fiance back home.  When Dr. Everett admits his own feelings for her after the hurricane, Betsy is torn, but she decides to remain true to Paul, and she returns home to Atlanta with her father after he is deemed fully recovered.  Of course, as can be expected, during her absence, Paul has fallen for Betsy's best friend, leaving Betsy free to back to Dr. Everett - but is it too late?  Has he already fallen prey to a bombshell vixen down in Key West, or does he still want to make her his wife?

Other than flying into the Key West airport, and brief mentions of Miami, there is very little detail at all about Florida, which was disappointing.  And the lack of any real hurricane drama also left me with a bad taste in my mouth regarding the book and its deceptive title.  The one part of the story I did rather find amusing were the residents of the Inn there on Blue Heron Cay where Betsy and her father stay.  The owner, Davanna (no last name), is a gruff woman who has a heart for starving artists who are trying to make their big break (but none of whom are talented, so that big break is likely never to come).  There was the "tall, thin, emaciated looking woman" named Mavis, who is a poet; the "short, intense, bald man" name Allan, who considers himself a composer; the "middle-aged, rather fluttery woman" named Gertrude, a self-proclaimed artist; and the "lank, bearded young man" named Slug, who has no job, no talent, and no patience for those who do work in the real world (pp. 34-25).  It's definitely a motley crew of residents, and it was somewhat engaging to see Betsy's first reaction to them, but gradually watch as she becomes not only accustomed to their idiosyncrasies, but eventually feels they are a part of her own extended family. 

With regard to the hurricane, Davanna makes mention that the hurricanes do not usually come through there until late September (p. 62); however, Florida's hurricane season is typically from June through November, with August through September being the "busiest" months.  And looking back at the hurricanes that went through the Keys prior to 1961 when this book was published, it seems most of them hit in September (making Davanna technically correct in her observation).  And when the eye of the storm reaches the Cay (p. 66), you gotta give Davanna credit, as she warns Betsy that the calm is deceiving, as the storm will come back with full force as soon as the eye passes over.  I just truly wish the hurricane had made a bigger impact in the story, to give some level of credence to the title.

 

The author is Peggy Gaddis,  who was rather popular back in the day with her nurse romance novels.  She was a rather prolific author, with a writing career spanning thirty years.  While she wrote a number of books under her maiden name of Gaddis, she also wrote under a number of pseudonyms, such as Gail Jordan, Joan Sherman, Carolina Lee, Georgia Craig, and several others (including some male names).  I do have a couple of her other books, so when I do get around to reading them, I'm hoping they will be a bit better than this one.

The cover art is painted by Harry Bennett, who provided cover art for a large number of romance, gothic, and mystery paperbacks over the years.  You can find out some of the artist's history at this website:  Harry Bennett - Artist.  And, coincidentally enough, I actually own one of Bennett's original paintings, which was used for a young adult novel called The End of Innocence, published in 1972.  I would love to track down the original art for hurricane nurse, as that cover is definitely much more dramatic than the story inside!

RATING:  6 battered, spray-stained yachting caps out of 10 for at least throwing in a bit of mystery surrounding the island doctor's past to provide some drama to the story.

Eight Candles Glowing - a Ballantine gothic

Here's another gothic novel I picked up based on the cover.  This one does not have the typical woman running away from a dark mansion in the background; rather, it has a frightened woman, half-turned, looking back at a mysterious, ghostly bride coming down the stairs in the candle light.  This imagery caught my eye for a couple of reasons:  (1) it made me instantly think of Dark Shadows, the gothic television show, when Victoria Winters saw the ghost of Josette DuPres; and (2) it also reminded me of one of Paul Frame's illustrations from the Nancy Drew Ghost Stories published back in the 1980s.  Nevertheless, that gorgeous cover conveys a frightening scene that piqued my curiosity about the story itself - and once I saw on the back description that the story was set in the Florida keys, well, I knew I had to have it.

Eight Candles Glowing is written by Patricia Muse, who, as it turns out, is an actual person and not just a pseudonym.  And what's even more coincidental is the fact that Patricia Alice Muse, from what I could find in my research, was born in Indiana (just above my birth-state of Kentucky!) and moved to Florida as an adult, where she was a substitute teacher in Key West, Florida from 1962-1968 (having obtained her post-graduate studies later at the University of Central Florida).  One source indicated that Muse herself admitted she never thought about being a writer until a close childhood cousin passed away unexpectedly, and she wrote her first book after that (a gothic titled The Belle Claudine, published five years prior to this book).  The author admits she used her cousin's summer home as the setting for that book.  Thus, it should come as no surprise, then, that this book is set in the Florida keys, where Muse herself spent nearly a decade teaching.  Other than Eight Candles Glowing and The Belle Claudine, the only other book I can find attributed to Muse is one titled Sound of Rain.

 

And yes, before you say it, the title to this book does bring to mind a certain Christmas carol (eight candles glowing, seven spirits floating, six creepy houses, etc., etc.).  But this book has nothing to do with Christmas; it is set in the summer.  The protagonist, Jessamyn ("Jess") Jenkins, is a teacher who has started her summer break and has gone to Key West for some rest and relaxation. During a terrible storm, she inadvertently ends up being washed to an isolated island just off the keys, where a bearded man by the name of Reeve Carstairs lives with his son, Tal, his brother-in-law, Adam, and Adam's wife, Becky.  The island is teeming with fauna, and what appears to be a dilapidated house from the outside is actually rather comfortable and well-kept on the inside.  Reeve and Becky treat the injuries Jess sustained during the storm, and when Reeve discovers Jess is a teacher, he asks her to stay on the island for the summer to help teach Tal, who had difficulties at the school this last year.  Oddly enough, despite the isolation and despite the strange behavior of everyone on the island, Jess agrees (which she really was not given much of a choice, since Reeve took her boat back to the mainland before Jess had a chance to wake up!).

Muse does provide a rather dark and supernatural-themed tale of loss, love, and anger as Jess tries to navigate through this very dysfunctional family.  Reeve's emotions run hot and cold - one minute he appears to genuinely love his son and care about Jess, but the next he seems distant and cold towards them both.  Tal begins to warm up to Jess, but he has his own anger issues and turns on Jess without any notice.   Becky seems the most friendly, but that is not saying much, because every time she seems about to tell Jess what is really going on, she clams up and walks away.  And Adam.  Well, poor Adam pretty much just stays in the background, gets a quick mention once-in-a-while, and is never really a part of the story.  And we can't finish talking about the "characters" without talking about the house itself - in this book, the house is definitely a character.  There's that door off of the living room that stays locked; yet, Jess is sure she hears someone moving around in there and has seen a light on behind the curtained window.  There's also that disembodied voice that begs Jess to "help him," which she hears coming from somewhere up the stairs.  And there's that ever-present feeling of someone else in the room, but when she turns around or opens the door, no one is there.  Is it really all in her imagination, as Reeve and Becky suggest, or is there something more sinister going on in that house?

There is a rather intense scene about two-thirds of the way through the story when Tal takes Jess to a hidden cover on the far side of the island in order to go scuba diving.  While exploring a sunken ship, the two of them encounter a shark that follows them back to their small boat - and when they struggle to get aboard as fast as they can, Tal's dog jumps in the water to stave off the shark!  Well, you can imagine how well that goes for the dog.  Muse is not overly descriptive, but definitely provides enough that it breaks your heart - and before you think the incident is merely thrown in to add some horror to the tale, think again.  There is a purpose to what happens, as it is actually the beginning of Jess finally learning the truth of what is going on within the Carstairs' house.  I mean, after all, she did find a couple of graves, one of which was marked with "Reeve Carstairs," leaving her to wonder just who was the man keeping her captive (and with whom she was beginning to fall in love)?

The cover art is a frighteningly beautiful image painted by Boris Vallejo, based on the signature on the bottom right-hand corner of the cover.  Vallejo is a Peruvian-American painter who is most recognized for his science-fiction and fantasy art.  I was not aware he did cover art for gothic titles such as this until I picked up this book.  It is stunning work, and it definitely sets the tone for the book.  I will say, the further I got into the book and did not come across any scene matching the cover, I was beginning to think this was another instance where the publisher simply threw art onto a book without worrying whether it actually fit the story (as a number of gothic publishers did at the time).  However, the scene does eventually appear, and when it does, the title to the book will also make sense to the reader!

As I indicated above, the cover drew me to the book because it not only made me think of Dark Shadows, but more because it resembled an internal illustration from the Nancy Drew Ghost Stories, drawn by Paul Frame.  Both scenes depict a woman in a white dress coming down the stairs; both scenes depict a young woman turning back to look at the ghostly woman; and both scenes appear to be set in a well-to-do house.  I suppose it would make sense that more modern Nancy Drew stories would be inspired by the gothic tales, since the early Nancy Drew stories featured so many gothic elements - stormy nights, hidden staircases, damsels in distress, unscrupulous men who pretend to be good, secret rooms, and countless "jump scares."  Since Eight Candles Glowing came out more than four years prior to the Paul Frame illustration, one can wonder if Frame took a cue from Vallejo's art in creating this scene for the Nancy Drew book.  Regardless, both images of art are beautiful in their own merit.

Now, for as much as I enjoyed the story, there are a couple of things worth mentioning that made me realize even back in the '70s, editing made its fair share of gaffs (although today, there seems to be no editing at all in books hitting the shelves!).  Once instance occurs on page 59, where Jess is apologizing to Becky for putting her through so much work to help her recuperate.  Muse writes, "Becky grunted, a reproachful grunt, as if Jeff shouldn't say such things..."  Who in the world is Jeff, and where did he come from?  Obviously, that was intended to be Jess, but someone's fingers slipped on the typewriter (or printing plate) and hit the "f" instead of the "s" key!  The other snafu can be found on page 86, where it appears something happened with the typesetting, and the paragraphs were scrambled:

He stopped her.  "You know what I mean!" He pushed his chair back from the table and moved his

"Becky will do that later!" it was a command she

plate aside.

"It's a long story, Tal," she said, gathering u their dishes and starting for the door.

stopped in surprise.

As you can see, the lines somehow got jumbled ... line three should have actually followed after that first line; and line five should have followed after line two.  Reading them as they got printed, however, can be very confusing to say the least!  I suppose as quickly as the publishers were pushing out those gothic books back in the day, it was inevitable that errors such as this would slip through the cracks.

Nevertheless, the story was a good one, the protagonist was a young woman worth rooting for, and the mystery was dark enough with the right amount of supernatural hints to it to keep it interesting and intriguing.  Plus, it was set in Florida, so it was an all-around win-win!

RATING:  9 rustling palm fronds out of 10 for a gothic tale of island suspense and locked-room mystery.