Susannah Higgins is an African American girl living in Northern California who likes to solve mysteries with her friend Lucy, who narrates the stories. Aside from her detective work, Susannah considers herself an amateur herpetologist, which is an unusual interest for girls in children’s literature. She has snake pictures on the walls of her room, and she keeps saying that she wants to have a pet snake, but her grandmother won’t allow it. She is described as having glasses and wearing her hair in two bunches at her neck. In the back of the first book, the author, Patricia Elmore, explains that the character of Susannah was inspired by a girl who appeared in a filmstrip she was making about early childhood education. The girl fascinated Elmore because she appeared so focused on her work, and Elmore decided to build a story around her as a detective.

Lucy explains in the first book that she and Susannah weren’t always friends. Susannah is the captain of their group at school and a much better student than Lucy. Susannah was something of a perfectionist. Lucy often resented Susannah nagging her about getting her homework done and improving her grades so their group could win their school’s Top Scholar’s Award (which only happened during a week when Lucy was absent from school, a sign that she really does bring down the average grade of their group). Susannah has sometimes despaired of Lucy dragging their group down and called her a “clown” and “dumb blonde.” Lucy would retaliate by drawing cartoons of Susannah. They started to resolve their differences when they got into an argument over something Lucy said to another classmate about Susannah. She said that Susannah “prevaricates”, which means to lie, but what she really meant was “pontificates.” At first, Susannah was mad at Lucy for calling her a liar, then she laughed when she realized that Lucy mixed up words that were vocabulary words for their class. Then, Susannah realized that there was some justification to Lucy’s criticism of her, that she does sometimes act like a know-it-all. Realizing that someone else had a justifiable criticism of her caused Susannah to soften her own criticism of Lucy, and their relationship improved.

Lucy and Susannah are best friends, although they do have different interests. There are times when Lucy would rather play basketball or do fun hairstyles with her friend than solve mysteries. Lucy is on the school’s soccer team. Susannah, who isn’t good at sports, belongs to the science club.

The children in this series don’t live in conventional, two-parent households, not even the side characters. All of them, even the side characters, live in single parent households or foster homes or with stepparents or relatives other than their parents. Lucy lives her her father, who is a single parent. Her father dates, and Lucy gets upset when she finds out that he seems to be developing a serious relationship with the single mother of a boy in her class Lucy doesn’t like. Susannah lives with her grandparents, but it is never explained why. Susannah never discusses her parents at all. In one book, when Susannah’s grandparents go on a trip, Susannah’s aunt stays with her, showing that Susannah’s parents aren’t there with her. I think they’re probably dead and they died a long time ago, so everyone who knows Susannah is aware of it and there’s no need for anyone to discuss it. Susannah’s grandfather is a judge, which is why Susannah knows some things about the law and has met some of the local lawyers. Her grandmother is active in local civic groups, and her aunt is a nurse at the Children’s Hospital.

Books in the Series:

Susannah and the Blue House Mystery (1980)

A friend of Susannah and Lucy is sad when the old man who treated her like a granddaughter dies. He said that he was going to leave her something before he died, but he didn’t seem to have anything to leave her … unless he had more than most people knew and Susannah can figure out what her true inheritance is.

Susannah and the Poison Green Halloween (1982)

When two of their friends are poisoned by something they ate after trick-or-treating at an apartment house, Susannah and Lucy try to find the source of the poison and the poisoner’s motives.

Susannah and the Purple Mongoose Mystery (1992)

Susannah and Lucy help a foster girl who may have been framed for arson at her new home.