Coffin on a Case by Eve Bunting, 1992.

Twelve-year-old Henry Coffin’s father is a private investigator, and Henry hopes to be one himself someday.  He’s learned a lot by watching his father in action.  One day, a sixteen-year-old girl, Lily, comes to the office and asks for help in finding her missing mother.  Lily found her mother’s car in their driveway with groceries still in it, and her mother is nowhere to be found.  She doesn’t want to go to the police because she once called the police about her mother being missing only to discover that there was a mix-up and that her mother had tried to leave her a note that she hadn’t seen.  Lily has double-checked this time to make sure that there was definitely no note from her mother and none of her mother’s friends have heard from her, but she worries that the police would think that she’s being paranoid, so she decided to consult a private investigator instead.

Henry’s father is concerned about the disappearance of Lily’s mother, but he’s unable to take the case because he has to go out of town.  He tries to refer Lily to another investigator or a friend of his who is with the police, but Lily just storms out of the office.  Henry wishes that he could take the case for his father.  His own mother abandoned him and his father when Henry was just a baby, so disappearing mothers are of great concern to him.  Later, when Lily gets in touch with him, Henry agrees to help her without telling either his father or Mrs. Sypes, the housekeeper who has looked after him since his mother left.

At first, there doesn’t seem to be much to go on.  Lily’s mother makes wooden storks that she sells as lawn decorations to people who have recently had a baby.  She was going to sell a couple before going to pick up the groceries, but Lily says that there is an extra one missing.  Somewhere between the grocery store and home, Lily’s mother made an unexpected stop . . . and there are signs that someone other than Lily’s mother drove the car to Lily’s house.  But, who was it, and what happened to Lily’s mother?

The answers to these puzzles put Henry on the trail of some dangerous thieves who would do just about anything to cover up their crime.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

Henry shows excellent deductive reasoning as he analyzes the clues and reconstructs Lily’s mother’s trail to learn what happened to her. Both Henry and his father are inspired by the fictional character, Sam Spade, and Henry makes frequent references to him in the story, thinking what Sam Spade would say or do in certain situations.

Throughout the book, Henry also considers his own mother’s disappearance years ago.  Her abandonment of her family was her own choice, not an abduction, which makes her situation different from what happened to Lily’s mother.  Henry has no real memory of his mother, which pains him somewhat.  He sometimes dreams that she’ll return home one day for a happy ending, like in the movies, but he also realizes that’s really just a daydream.  When Lily’s mother is finally rescued, Henry and Lily continue being friends, and Henry also considers whether a relationship would be possible between his father and Lily’s mother.  It’s a nice idea, but Henry also thinks that isn’t likely, and he’s okay with that.