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The Mysterious Visitor

Trixie Belden

tbvisitor#4 The Mysterious Visitor by Julie Campbell, 1954.

Now that school has started again, Trixie and Honey see more of the other kids who live in Sleepyside, including a girl named Diana Lynch. Trixie has known Diana for a long time, but ever since her father made a lot of money, Diana has been distant.

Di is deeply unhappy because her parents, particularly her mother, have been trying to live up to their new status by having the household run by fussy servants who don’t care much for children. Diana always has to wear formal clothes, she doesn’t get to play with her younger siblings as much, and she finds it increasingly hard to just relax and have fun with friends.

When Honey and Trixie invite Diana to become a member of the Bob-Whites, she tells them about her long-lost uncle who has recently come to visit her family. Her mother is happy about finally meeting the brother she has not seen since she was a baby, but Uncle Monty has been making Di’s life miserable. Whenever she makes plans to have a Halloween party or do things with friends, he tries his best to interfere and ruin everything. Uncle Monty is rude and offends people. Trixie is convinced that Di’s Uncle Monty is not what he seems to be, but she’s not sure how to prove it.

I love the description of the Halloween party that the kids have at Diana’s house!

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

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The Gatehouse Mystery

Trixie Belden

TBGatehouseMystery#3 The Gatehouse Mystery by Julie Campbell, 1951.

One day, Honey and Trixie decide to explore the old gatehouse on the property of Honey’s mansion. It hasn’t been used for years, and it is overgrown with vines. However, it looks as though someone has been there recently, and the girls find a diamond on the floor inside. There are signs of a scuffle, and the diamond looks like it was accidentally wedged into the floor. Have thieves been hiding out in that old cottage?

Honey thinks that they should turn the diamond over to the police, but Trixie wants a chance to investigate the crime first, just the two of them, and to prove to Jim and her brothers that she and Honey can be detectives as good as any man could. However, the boys become involved when someone attempts to enter Honey’s room at night to reclaim the diamond.

With their suspicions divided between the new gardener and the new chauffeur, the kids form a club they call the Bob-Whites of the Glen to investigate the matter and to trap the thieves.  This club continues for the rest of the series.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

TBGatehouseMysteryPic

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The Adventures of the Red Tape Gang

RedTapeGangThe Adventures of the Red Tape Gang by Joan Lowery Nixon, 1974.

Hardcover editions of this book are called The Mysterious Red Tape Gang.

Mike’s father loves to read the newspaper every morning and rant about the stories that make him angry.  It annoys him how little gets accomplished because there’s so much “red tape” involved.  Take the case of their neighbor, Mr. Hartwell.  He has a large bush that’s dangerously close to the corner of their street and has caused several accidents. The city wants him to cut it, but he refuses to do so out of meanness and stubbornness.  Now, the city has to go through all kinds of red tape to make it happen.

His father’s rants give Mike an idea.  Why not put the new clubhouse he and his friends are working on to good use and form a club to right the wrongs of their neighborhood and make all of that red tape unnecessary?  Besides, cutting the Hartwells’ bush in the middle of the night would be a great joke on Mr. Hartwell’s nosy daughter, Linda Jean, who’s always hanging around, getting in the way of Mike and his friends.

Mike’s friends love the idea of being secret neighborhood heroes, but of course, it turns out to be harder than they expected.  After trimming the Hartwells’ bush as best they can, they decide that instead of just cutting the bush, it would be better to move it to a completely different spot so there will be no need to cut it again when it grows out.  But, Mr. Hartwell almost catches them in their midnight landscaping, and when Linda Jean finds Mike’s shears, they’re forced to let her into their club.

Their next project, boarding up the doors and windows of an abandoned house so that curious children won’t wander in and get hurt, also comes with complications.  It seems that the house wasn’t quite as abandoned as everyone thought.  Still, the Red Tape Gang accomplishes something even greater than just keeping kids out of the house and successfully keeps their identities secret.  But while they’re congratulating themselves on the wonderful job they’ve been doing, they discover that their neighborhood contains far more serious problems than they originally thought. Their activities are also starting to come to the attention of the wrong people.  And, for one member of the group, these problems hit dangerously close to home.

This was one of my favorite books when I was a kid.  The descriptions of the kids’ midnight excursions are hilarious and make you want to cheer them on!

This book is currently available online through Internet Archive.