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The Mystery of the Green Ghost

The Three Investigators

#4 The Mystery of the Green Ghost by Robert Arthur, 1965.

Bob and Pete are looking at an old, abandoned house that’s in the process of being torn down when they hear an unearthly scream from the house! There are stories that the old house is haunted, and the boys run away, only to be stopped by a group of local men, who ask them what’s going on. When the boys explain, the men talk about calling the police or going inside the house to investigate. The men decide to just go in and have a look around themselves, in case someone’s hurt and needs help right away. They tell the boys that they can leave because they will handle the situation, but the boys decide that they can’t leave without having a look themselves.

As they take a look around inside, they see the remains of the ornate wall paper and impressive features of the once-rich house, and the men talk about Mathias Green, who used to live in the house. At first, the searchers can’t find anything, but then, they spot a greenish figure on the stairs. Thinking that there’s some prankster in the house, the searchers go upstairs to confront the person, but they can’t find whoever it was. The boys suggest that they have a look at the dust on the floor and try to follow the person’s footprints, but the only footprints the searchers can find are their own. Could they have seen a ghost?

The searchers do notify the police about what they’ve seen in the house, but the police don’t take it too seriously … at first. However, they soon begin receiving other reports from various people around the city who claim to have seen a greenish, ghostly figure. Even then, the police might not have take the reports too seriously, except that a couple of officers on patrol witness a greenish, ghostly figure in the cemetery … at the burial site of Mathias Green, who died falling down the stairs in his house, 50 years before.

While Bob and Pete were at the house, Bob had his tape recorder with him, and he plays the recording of the scream they heard for their friend and fellow investigator, Jupiter. Jupiter is willing to believe it could be the scream of Mathias Green’s ghost, and the boys review the information they know about Mathias Green. Mathias Green was once the skipper of the ship, and he sailed to China. For reasons that nobody fully understands, he had to leave China suddenly, and the rumors were that Mathias’s wife was a Chinese princess and that Chinese nobles had a grudge against Mathias. Mathias brought his wife back to the United States with him, and they built their house in Rocky Beach after Mathias had a fight with his sister-in-law, and they moved away from San Francisco. They had some Chinese servants, but when Mathias was later found dead, apparently from an accidental fall down the stairs, the servants and his wife disappeared. People assumed that they left for fear that they would be blamed for Mathias’s death, and Mathias’s sister-in-law inherited the house. Recently, Mathias’s niece decided to sell the house to a developer, who is planning to tear it down and build more modern houses.

Local newspapers have picked up the stories about the green ghost and its apparent connection to the old Green mansion, and some of them have implied that the ghost is looking for a new place to haunt now that its house is being torn down. The Three Investigators have access to more information than most people because Bob’s father is one of the reporters covering the ghost incidents. The police chief tells them, off the record, that he witnessed the ghost himself, in the cemetery, and it looked like it disappeared by sinking down into Mathias’s grave. Then, the police chief learns that the workmen tearing down the house have discovered a hidden room. Bob’s father and the boys are allowed to come with him to see what the room contains.

The discovery is a shock. The hidden room contains an ornate coffin, holding the skeleton of Mathias’s Chinese bride, dressed in elaborate robes and with an unusual necklace of gray pearls, called ghost pearls. The story is that the reason why Mathias and his bride had to suddenly flee China was that Mathias reportedly stole the pearl necklace to give to his bride. When she died in Rocky Beach, he couldn’t bear to be parted from her, so he “buried” her secretly in his house, along with the necklace.

The discovery of Mathias’s wife’s hidden burial chamber doesn’t lay the ghost to rest, though. Bob and Pete get a phone call from Mathias’s niece, Lydia, asking them to visit her at the vineyard where she lives, to talk about what they witnessed at the house. She says that the ghost has actually appeared at her vineyard! Jupiter is not invited to the vineyard because he didn’t witness the appearance of the ghost with the others, but he couldn’t go anyway because he’s temporarily in charge of his uncle’s salvage yard while his uncle is out of town. He tells Bob and Pete to go ahead and meet with Lydia and let him know what they learn.

At the vineyard, Bob and Pete meet Lydia’s distant cousin, Harold, and Lydia’s great-nephew, Charles, who is actually the great-grandson of Mathias Green and the real heir to Mathias’s estate. Charles, who is called Chang, grew up in China, and they explain that he is descended from Mathias’s first wife, who died of an illness in China. After the death of his first wife, Mathias put his young son into an American missionary school in China and left him there as a boarding student. When he married his second wife and had to flee China, he left his son behind. His descendants remained in China since then, until it became unsafe for Americans or people of American descent in China. Then, Charles, who is an orphan and part Chinese (hence his nickname of Chang), was sent to live with Lydia in the United States. Until that point, he knew very little about his ancestors and his relatives in America. Technically, Mathias’s estate should have come to Chang’s side of the family when Mathias died, but they were living in China at that time and were not in touch with the rest of the family. Lydia says that Chang should even technically own the vineyard that she and Harold have built with the family’s money, but Chang doesn’t want to take it from them, so Lydia says that she is leaving it to Chang in her will. Chang is satisfied with this arrangement, but the family has debts, and if they don’t resolve them, they might lose the vineyard entirely.

Lydia believes that the green ghost is Mathias’s ghost, and he is haunting them because he’s angry with her for selling his old house to be torn down. The ghost has been scaring away workers at the vineyard, and if they can’t get the harvest processed, they won’t be able to keep the vineyard. However, Chang doesn’t believe that his great-grandfather would want to hurt his own family. Chang might be willing to believe that the ghost is an evil spirit, masquerading as his great-grandfather. That’s not the only possibility, though. There could be a human being with a motive for wanting to ruin the vineyard. Then again, there is the question of who really owns the ghost pearl necklace. If Mathias’s family owns the necklace, they could sell it to cover their debts, but it might really belong to the family of Mathias’s Chinese wife. Her family is more difficult to trace, but one person has stepped forward, claiming to be her heir. Then, someone attacks Harold and steals the necklace from him. Was the necklace always the ghost’s target, from the beginning? Meanwhile, back in Rocky Beach, Jupiter has a revelation. There was a dog present when Bob and Pete were searching the Green mansion with the men, and the dog … didn’t do anything. That might be the most important clue of all!

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies, including some in other languages).

My Reaction and Some Spoilers

I enjoyed the mystery and the reference to Sherlock Holmes about the dog that did nothing in the nighttime. In this story, Jupiter takes the dog’s non-reaction as a sign that there was no supernatural presence in the house because animals are supposed to react to the presence of ghosts. There is definitely a human behind all the spooky happenings, and I was partly right about who it was. However, the author threw in a complication by inserting another mysterious villain who kind of usurped the original plotter’s plot for his own purposes and partly distracts the characters from the original villain for part of the story.

This added villain is a mysterious old man from China who claims that he’s 107 years old and that he wants the pearls because drinking dissolved ghost pearls is the key to immortality. This mysterious old man is wealthy, and he has bought up the family’s debts, meaning that he will get control of the vineyard, if they can’t pay their debts. However, he’s not really interested in the vineyard for its own sake. He just wants those pearls. Although he does some criminal things in the story, nothing much seems to happen to him at the end, and he works out a deal with Lydia, so she can keep the vineyard. It’s left open whether or not he truly ended up with the pearls or whether the pearls actually have properties for preserving someone’s life, but it seems that he truly believes it, and he has no other motivations for his part in the story.

This almost Fu Manchu style character, who uses hypnosis to control people, adds an element of exoticism to the story that I thought wasn’t really necessary. I liked the ghost mystery well enough with its original villain and without him, and I felt like the introduction of the extra villain sent the plot a little off the rails, but he does allow the story to end on a somewhat creepy and ambiguous note. We don’t entirely know who he is, and we never really find out what happens to him. We don’t know if he’s really as old as he says he is or if he continues much further in his quest to live forever. He just disappears after getting what he can of the pearls, presumably to go hunting for more elsewhere.

As far as I’ve been able to determine, the ghost pearls aren’t real, and the legend about them prolonging people’s lives isn’t real. However, there are legends and superstitions from around the world about pearls being associated with wisdom and longevity and having healing powers. Pearls can be dissolved in an acidic liquid and drunk by a human, as in the famous story about Cleopatra drinking a pearl in vinegar, which was supposed to be an aphrodisiac.

Getting back to the mystery, though, I did like the Scooby-Doo-like mystery, and I was satisfied by the original plot, and the villain’s methods and motives. I was looking at that character with suspicion for a number of reasons. Perhaps, if the part about the pearl necklace, the ancient man who drinks pearls, and Mathias’s bizarre room with his dead wife weren’t in the story, the solution would be too obvious, but overall, I enjoyed it. I also appreciated how Jupiter worked out some of the details of the first haunting by visiting the house and studying the scene while his friends were at the vineyard. He comes to some conclusions about how that first haunting occurred that Bob and Pete didn’t think about, and his solution also provides a reasonable answer to the question of why that group of men happened to show up outside the house on the evening the haunting happened, to witness it.

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The Case of the Phantom Frog

McGurk Mysteries

The Case of the Phantom Frog by E. W. Hildick, 1979.

Mrs. Kranz, an elderly sculptor, has been looking after her nephew’s 7-year-old son, Bela, because his parents were in a car accident and are still in the hospital. She consults the McGurk Organization because strange things have been happening since Bela came to live with her. At first, she is reluctant to say what is really bothering her. She was referred to the McGurk Organization by Willie’s mother, and she frames her request as hiring the kids to watch Bela while she’s working. McGurk turns down the offer, saying that the oldest members of the McGurk Organization are only 10 years old, not really old enough to babysit, and babysitting isn’t the kind of job they handle anyway. Wanda tries to refer Mrs. Kranz to a regular babysitter she knows, but Mrs. Kranz is strangely desperate and insists that she wants the McGurk Organization.

Because they’re reluctant to accept the job, Mrs. Kranz finally admits that there is a mystery connected to Bela. She starts by telling them that she’s afraid of frogs, like some people are really afraid of bugs or rats or other creatures. Ever since Bela came to stay with her, Mrs. Kranz has been hearing an unusually loud frog sound in her house, particularly in the evening, after Bela is in bed. Bela insists that he never hears it, but it’s giving Mrs. Kranz the creeps. She’s tried to search the house as best she can, but she can’t find the frog anywhere. It’s not the kind of thing that she can go to the police about, but it’s driving her crazy. The real reason why she wants the McGurk Organization to spend time with Bela is to see if they hear the frog, too, and if they can figure out where it is.

This time, McGurk is intrigued enough to accept the case, plus Mrs. Kranz offers them a larger fee for their services than they usually have. They consider the idea that Mrs. Kranz could be making up the story about the phantom frog she hears just to get them to accept her babysitting job, but they decide that isn’t likely, both because of the generous amount of money she’s paying them and because she seems genuinely frightened.

When they get to Mrs. Kranz’s house, it’s a big place that looks almost castle-like, and it’s surrounded by trees. Mrs. Kranz invites them in and introduces them to Bela. Bela was born in Hungary, where Mrs. Kranz was from originally. He doesn’t seem glad to meet the members of the McGurk Organization. In fact, he tries to ignore them and talk to them as little as he can. He doesn’t really want to talk to them about the frog when they ask him about it. He just says that maybe he’s heard a frog and that his aunt has frogs on the brain.

McGurk is annoyed with the kid, so he teases him about his name, saying that Bela sounds like a girl’s name. Bela defends his name, saying it’s Hungarian. Joey tries to defuse the situation, saying that Bela Lugosi was a famous actor in old horror movies, and he was also Hungarian. McGurk is intrigued by the mention of old horror movies because he loves them, and he starts asking Bela about whether there are things like vampires and werewolves in Hungary. Bela says that monsters are just stupid kid things. Brains is inclined to agree with Bela because there’s no scientific evidence that such things exist, and McGurk gets irritated with both of them.

When McGurk consults with the other members of the organization about Bela, he says that he thinks Bela is hiding something. His theory is that Bela is making the frog sounds himself to scare his aunt as a prank and that his hostility toward their presence and their questions is to cover up for what he’s doing. Wanda takes a different view because she thought that Bela seemed scared of something when they were talking to him, and she thinks that Bela is covering up his fear. Maybe he’s afraid of the frog or the frog sound and doesn’t want to admit it. Brains thinks that the sound could have some ordinary explanation, like sounds from the plumbing system that have been misidentified.

Aside from his hostility toward their questions, Bela seems like a well-behaved kid to watch. When it’s time for bed, he doesn’t argue with the older kids or make a lot of special requests or excuses to stay up later. In fact, he seems eager to go to bed. His only requests are that they leave the lights on and the window slightly open for air. As soon as Bela is in bed, the members of the McGurk Organization station themselves at strategic points around the house, waiting to see what they can hear and where it seems to be coming from.

They do hear the frog, and it sounds unnaturally loud, like it’s a monster frog! Most of them aren’t sure where the sound came from, but Brains is pretty sure that it came from Bela’s room. When they go inside, Bela seems like he’s asleep, and they don’t see a frog anywhere. They’re convinced that Bela is faking that he’s asleep, although Bela puts on an act like he was really asleep. McGurk knows that he must have been awake while they were out of the room because they left the light on for him, and when they first entered the room, the light was off. At some point, Bela must have gotten up and turned it off himself, although they don’t know why he would do that. For some reason, he also shut his window.

It seems pretty clear that Bela has something to do with the frog noise. The next night, they rig up a microphone in Bela’s room so they can monitor the sounds there. When they hear a loud frog sound, they hurry up to Bela’s room and find a frog sitting on his pillow .. and there is no sign of Bela! McGurk stuns the others when he makes the announcement that Bela is a werefrog! McGurk thinks that Bela has the transformation powers of a werewolf, but he’s turning into a frog instead of a wolf. They go to the kitchen, where McGurk finds some garlic, and when they return to Bela’s room, the frog is gone, and Bela is back in bed. Is Bela really a werefrog, or is there another explanation for what’s happening?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

I remember reading this book when I was a kid, and I did a book report on it for school. I even did a little diorama about the story that looked like Bela’s bedroom, with a little frog made out of modeling clay. It was cute, but I can’t show it because I don’t have it anymore.

I found the story pleasantly creepy when I first read it as a kid. Even though I was sure that there must be some logical explanation for the phantom frog and Bela’s apparent transformations, I honestly wasn’t sure what it was at first. The mystery isn’t that complicated for an adult, but it’s creepy and mysterious for a child.

It sometimes seems to me that kids in the McGurk books are a little mean to each other and call each other names too much. I didn’t like it that McGurk was teasing Bela about his name in this book. However, it does serve a purpose in this story because the discussion of Bela’s name is what introduces the mention of Bela Lugosi and the idea that there might be a supernatural explanation for the phantom frog and that Bela might be a werefrog. Mrs. Kranz doesn’t suggest that idea to the kids when she first consults them about the frog. McGurk is the one who thinks of it because he’s really into old horror movies, and Bela being Hungarian, like Bela Lugosi, suggests a connection to the supernatural to him.

Not all the others are really as convinced as McGurk is, but they are creeped out by the phantom frog that appears and disappears and Bela’s odd behavior. Brains is the least convinced of everyone that there’s a supernatural explanation for the frog, reminding everyone that he invented an “invisible dog” in a previous book. He knows that it’s possible to create some pretty convincing illusions. He’s the one who convinces McGurk to investigate the possibility that Bela is faking everything somehow.

I like to take note of times when characters in books reference pieces of pop culture from the time when they were written. At one point, the kids in the story are watching a Peanuts special on tv, based on the characters from the comic strip. That comic strip was still being written and published at the time this book was written, and I remember watching Peanuts specials on tv myself as a little kid in the 1980s.

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The Case of the Invisible Dog

McGurk Mysteries

The Case of the Invisible Dog by E. W. Hildick, 1977.

The members of the McGurk Organization are having their annual picnic in McGurk’s backyard when, suddenly, a doughnut leaps off the table and begins traveling through the bushes and grass. None of them can understand what’s happening because they can’t see anything that would cause the doughnut to move like that.

They go after the doughnut to see what happened, and they find Brains Bellingham, the nephew of Miss Bellingham, who lives next door. Brains has been staying with his aunt while his parents are out of town, and he always has a put-down for the members of the McGurk Organization. Brains is holding his aunt’s Yorkshire terrier, Dennis, and the missing doughnut, which has apparently been chewed by the dog. Brains apologizes for the dog ruining their “crummy” picnic, but he says that Dennis can’t resist doughnuts. However, that explanation doesn’t satisfy the McGurk Organization because none of them saw a dog carrying the doughnut, just the doughnut moving by itself. Brains makes an excuse about the dog being small and blending in with his surroundings, but the others can tell that he’s hiding something.

When Brains leaves for a moment because he says his aunt is calling him, they spot a strange black box in the grass. The box has dials and switches on it, and there are two labels: “Increase Invisibility” and “Restore Visibility.” Brains is known for building various inventions, so they know this is probably something he made, but does this device really make things invisible? Is that why they couldn’t see the dog when he stole the doughnut? They have a look inside the device, but since none of them is particularly good with electronics, they just know that it contains a bunch of wires and seems to be powered by batteries, and there is some kind of light inside the box. There are also doughnut crumbs inside the box.

When Brains sees them messing with the box, he yells at them to stop snooping. Joey, the organization’s secretary, knows that part of Brains’s problem with the organization is that he’s jealous because he really wants to join. He’s hinted before that they need a laboratory man to help them with forensics. McGurk might have taken him up on the offer except that Brains was condescending and insulting in the way he made it, calling them “dummies.” He’s a little younger than the rest of them, too, so his condescending attitude makes him seem even more like an annoying little kid. McGurk tries to ask Brains about his strange device, but Brains just refuses to answer and takes the box and the dog away.

The members of the McGurk Organization return to their picnic, but they can’t stop wondering about Brains, his strange invisibility device, and how he accomplished the trick with the dog and the doughnut. Most of the organization members are pretty sure that there must be some kind of trick to it, but they can’t figure out how Brains did it. While they discuss it in their basement meeting room, they hear what sounds like the jingle of dog tags, and Willie, who has a very sensitive nose, says that he smells a dog. They search the basement and find a dog’s rubber bone. Then, Brains shows up, looking for Dennis. To their astonishment, Brains seems to pick up an invisible dog, who seems to be struggling and making dog noises, growling and jingling tags!

When the organization goes to confront Brains about what just happened, they find him with his strange box. The box appears empty on the inside, but they hear dog sounds from it. Brains operates the controls and opens the box again, and Dennis comes out! Brains claims that he invented the invisibility box by accident while he was trying to develop a treatment for getting rid of Dennis’s fleas and ticks using light rays. Brains says that there is a side effect where Dennis sometimes turns invisible at random times without Brains intentionally turning him invisible but that he’s working on the problem.

McGurk is thrilled at the possibility that Brains might be able to build a machine big enough to turn a person invisible, and he even offers Brains membership in the organization if he can do it. Brains says he could, but to everyone’s surprise, he turns down the membership offer. He says that he knows they don’t really want him in the organization; they just want his machine. It’s a little embarrassing, but it’s true.

The members of the McGurk organization consider ways that they could get Brains to change his mind. McGurk considers blackmail, but Wanda says that wouldn’t be right for a detective organization. Wanda thinks McGurk should apologize to Brains for the way he turned Brains away when he tried to join earlier, but McGurk can’t stand the idea of apologizing. Willie thinks they could offer to pay Brains, but they don’t really have anything they could pay him. They all ponder what would happen if they let word of Brains’s invention get out to the public or even the government.

Then, Brains comes to them, asking for help. He says that Dennis has turned invisible again, and he’s run off! Can the McGurk Organization find an invisible missing dog?

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

My Reaction

I didn’t read this book when I was a kid, although I read many others in the series. Because I didn’t read this book before, I didn’t really know the story of how Brains joined the McGurk Organization. There are some references to it in some of the later books in the series, so I knew that, when the other members of the organization first met Brains, they were investigating him for some trick he’d played on them. I was used to Brains being their friend, so it seemed odd to see him as the antagonist/suspect they are investigating in this book.

During the story, the members of the McGurk Organization are pretty sure from the beginning that Brains is playing some kind of trick, but they’re not sure how. He does manage to convince them temporarily that he has successfully developed an invisibility device, but McGurk soon realizes that something Brains has said contradicts what’s happened. Then, he and the others reexamine what happened to figure out how Brains staged his tricks. They’re a little mad at being tricked, so they pull one more trick on Brains to get even before they all forgive each other. Brains shouldn’t have called the others “dummies” or been condescending to them, and the others shouldn’t have been too quick to write him off just because he’s a year younger than they are. In the end, McGurk says that anybody who’s clever enough to work out a complicated trick like this one deserves to be a member of the organization, and they hold another picnic to celebrate their new member.

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The Case of the Tricky Trickster

The Bobbsey Twins

The Case of the Tricky Trickster by Laura Lee Hope (Stratemeyer Syndicate), 1992.

Before I begin, I’d like to acknowledge Sean Hagins, for supplying me with photos of this book! Usually, I take pictures of books myself, but I just couldn’t find a physical copy of this one. Sean is a big fan of the Bobbsey Twins, particularly the New Bobbsey Twins mysteries, and you can see some of his video reviews as well as videos about his photography work on his YouTube channel, SJHFoto. Thanks, Sean!

The PTAs at the schools the Bobbsey Twins attend, elementary and middle school, are holding a variety show to raise money, with students showing off their talents. A boy in Freddie and Flossie’s class, Brian, is going to put on a juggling act, but Freddie and Flossie are going to help another friend, Teddy, with his magic act. Nan and Bert have a rock band with some friends called the Aliens, and they’re going to be performing, too. Danny Rugg, the school bully, even has an act where he’s going to play the accordion.

However, things soon start going wrong with the show. During the rehearsal, someone turns on the Aliens’ amplifier, making a loud sound that startles everyone. Then, a pole falls and almost hits a student while she’s singing. Then, Brian slips on some floor wax. Freddie and Flossie suspect Danny of playing pranks on everyone because he was near the places where the pranks occurred, and it seems like the kind of thing he might do, but there are other suspects.

Some of the other students seem nervous about performing their acts or think that the show won’t really be that good. Could someone be trying to sabotage the show to get out of performing? Then again, there seems to be some kind of rivalry between the music teacher who is directing the show and Mr. Horton, the fifth grade teacher. Mr. Horton seems resentful that he wasn’t given the chance to direct the show, and he keeps trying to prove that the music teacher is doing things wrong and that he could do them better. Just how far would he go to prove that he would be the better director?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction and Spoilers

I thought that the mystery was good, although I also thought that the culprit was obvious about halfway through the story. It might take kids longer to figure out who it is, but there is one person who gets more than their share of the sabotage, and some of the tricks are ones that a person could only play on themselves. There is a student who is trying to get out of having to perform, but once the Bobbsey Twins figure out why, they manage to work things out so that the student is able to go ahead with their act.

The story reminded me a little of The Tap Dance Mystery in the Eagle-Eye Ernie series, although the mysteries aren’t the same. What reminds me of the other book is that both stories involve family expectations. Performing in front of classmates is enough to make anyone nervous, but having family with high expectations present puts a great deal of pressure on a child performer. There is a bit more than that because there are reasons why the student doesn’t think they can live up to everyone’s expectations, but fortunately, a little help from a friend can go a long way!

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The Case of the Crazy Collections

The Bobbsey Twins

The Case of the Crazy Collections by Laura Lee Hope (Stratemeyer Syndicate), 1991.

Before I begin, I’d like to acknowledge Sean Hagins, for supplying me with photos of this book! Usually, I take pictures of books myself, but I just couldn’t find a physical copy of this one. Sean is a big fan of the Bobbsey Twins, particularly the New Bobbsey Twins mysteries, and you can see some of his video reviews as well as videos about his photography work on his YouTube channel, SJHFoto. Thanks, Sean!

The Bobbsey twins’ neighborhood is having their annual block party, and the Bobbsey twins and their parents are helping to set up for it. As part of the party, the neighborhood has rented a tent, where kids from the neighborhood are displaying their collections. The neighborhood kids collect all kinds of things, like baseball cards, comic books, soda cans, autographs, and coins. One boy, Kevin, has an autographed baseball that his grandfather gave to him. The neighbors are charging people money to see the exhibit of collections, and the money will be used for a pizza party later.

Later, Kevin’s autographed baseball disappears. Could the baseball thief be Mr. Sher, a visitor staying with their neighbor, Mr. Andersen? Mr. Sher tried to buy the baseball from Kevin earlier, but Kevin turned him down. Then again, Kevin’s cousin, Steve, was jealous that Kevin has the baseball. Steve turned down the offer of some of his grandfather’s old collectible items in favor of a savings bond, which he has already cashed in and spend on video games. Steve tried to borrow more money from Kevin earlier, but Kevin turned him down because Steve hasn’t yet repaid him for money Kevin loaned to him before. Danny, the neighborhood bully, was also mad at Kevin earlier. He’s a friend of Steve’s and didn’t want to have to pay to see the collections. Then again, another local girl, Jennifer, collects autographs, and they see her at a collectors’ shop. Would she know the value of an autographed baseball, and was she trying to sell it? With so many people coming and going from the tent where the collections were on display, it’s hard to say who might have taken something. The thief may have even been the Bobbseys’ own dog, Chief, who has developed a habit of collecting and hoarding baseballs.

Then, another boy realizes that his prized hologram sticker is missing. Could the thief have taken that, too? Their clues are an unexplained slit in the back of the tent, some footprints, and a pin with Greek letters on it. Can the Bobbsey Twins find the valuable baseball and return it to Kevin?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

Something I thought was interesting about this story was that it brings up the concept of collecting things for fun or sentimental value vs. collecting things because of their monetary value. Most of the kids in the neighborhood collect things just for fun. At first, Kevin doesn’t seem to fully realize the value of the autographed baseball. His attachment to the baseball is because he got it from his grandfather. When he had the offer to sell it to Mr. Sher, he refused because the baseball reminds him of his grandfather.

I had a strong suspicion about the identity of the baseball thief early in the story, and my guess turned out to be right, but I liked it that there were plenty of other suspects to consider. There are child suspects, adult suspects, and even the Bobbseys’ own dog. Any of these could be plausible. When they realize that the hologram sticker is missing, it raises the question of whether the person who took the baseball also took the sticker, if the sticker was taken by someone else, or if the missing sticker is just a red herring. Overall, I enjoyed the mystery, and I liked the abundance of suspects.

Posted on by TracyC

The Case of the Bicycle Bandit

A Jigsaw Jones Mystery

The Case of the Bicycle Bandit by James Preller, 2001.

Jigsaw Jones and his friend, Ralphie, have to go to the library to get books for a book report at school. While they are at the library, somebody steals Ralphie’s bike!

First, it’s strange that Ralphie’s bike was stolen because Ralphie is sure that he locked it up using the same chain that he used to also lock up Jigsaw’s bike. How could someone take a bike that was chained up, and since the two bikes were chained together, why is Jigsaw’s bike still chained up, as if the lock was never opened?

Second, if someone could get the chain open to take one of the bikes, why did the thief take Ralphie’s bike? Jigsaw’s bike is new and in good condition, while Ralphie’s bike, which he calls “Old Rusty”, is old, beat-up, and always breaking in some way. Ralphie is fond of “Old Rusty”, which was a hand-me-down from his older brother, but if some stranger had a choice of stealing one of two bikes, wouldn’t it make more sense to take the one that’s in better condition?

Jigsaw Jones calls his friend, Mila, to help him investigate and find Ralphie’s missing bike, and they get some help from a classmate who is good at drawing portraits to interview witnesses and do sketches of suspects. Their most likely suspect is a skateboarder whose face nobody saw clearly. But, how did the skateboarder know how to open the lock on the bike chain, and why did he take only the old bike and lock up the newer one again?

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

My Reaction

Books in this series are easy, beginning chapter books with pictures that accompany the story. The mystery in this book is pretty simple, although it might seem more difficult to younger readers. I liked the way the characters reasoned it out, logically confronting the problem of how the thief opened the bike chain and why the thief took the older bike instead of the new one. I also enjoyed their use of an amateur sketch artist to find one of their suspects.

Even after Jigsaw does a stakeout and realizes who is responsible for taking the bike, he doesn’t seem to quite understand the motive until the thief explains it, although the motive was what I figured it was. Revealing the culprit in this book also includes a spoiler for an earlier book in the series.

I was amused when Jigsaw said that he charges a dollar a day for his detective services. At first, I thought that shows the inflation that’s happened since Encyclopedia Brown charged his clients a quarter. Then, Jigsaw checks out an Encyclopedia Brown book from the library, showing that Jigsaw is familiar with the books and also giving kind of a nod to an earlier boy detective who may have somewhat inspired this series. I always appreciate children’s books that reference other books.

Posted on by TracyC

The Pet Day Mystery

The Pet Day Mystery by Mary Blount Christian, illustrated by Joe Boddy, 1989.

This book is part of the Sherlock Street Detectives series.

It’s Pet Day at school, and twins Walter and Ann are bringing their dog, Watson, and their cat, Fuzz Face to school with them. Watson is really Walter’s dog, and Fuzz Face is Ann’s cat. The school bus is chaotic and noisy because the other children have their pets with them, too.

At school, each of the kids tells the rest of the class about their pet. When it’s time to go to lunch, the kids give their pets food and water and leave them in the classroom.

When they come back from lunch, a pair of hamsters are missing, and their owner, Tina, thinks that Fuzz Face might have eaten them. Ann points out that Fuzz Face couldn’t have eaten the hamsters because Fuzz Face was in his cage during lunch.

The kids figure that the hamsters are probably hiding somewhere in the room, and they ask Tina to tell them everything she knows about the hamsters so they can find them. They use what Tina tells them about the habits of hamsters to figure out where they are.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

It’s a fun picture book mystery, but it’s also educational, like other books in the series. The information the kids give about their pets is true. Some of them say where their pets originally came from, like Pedro, who says that his pet parrot is a breed that comes from South America. Ann mentions that her cat takes vitamins and has to go to the vet sometimes, like people have to visit their own doctors. I liked how the characters use facts about the behavior of hamsters to figure out where the hamsters went.

I was a kid about the age of the characters at the time this book was published, although I don’t remember reading this book at the time. When I was in kindergarten, the year before the book was published, we had a special pet event in my class, but we didn’t do it like the class in this book. As I recall, different people brought in pets on different days so it was less chaotic and there was no chance of one pet eating another, which is a real risk. Also, all pets had to be in cages to keep them from running away or causing trouble, and they were never left unattended. My mother helped me bring our pet birds to class, and she took them home with her immediately afterward, so they weren’t left sitting around the classroom.

The book has a vocabulary list and glossary in the back.

Posted on by TracyC

The Mystery of the Missing Scarf

The Mystery of the Missing Scarf by Mary Blount Christian, illustrated by Joe Boddy, 1989.

This book is part of the Sherlock Street Detectives series.

Ann doesn’t have much confidence in her twin brother Walter’s dog Watson. She doesn’t think that he’s capable of learning tricks, and when Walter shows her the new trick he’s taught Watson, she isn’t very impressed. The trick is for Watson to just grab a red rag out of Walter’s hand and run off with it.

Ann is more concerned with getting her scarf washed and hung out to dry before they go see their friends. David and Pedro like Watson’s trick. At least, it’s a pretty good trick for Watson because Watson doesn’t know many.

Pedro shows the other kids how he’s making a weather vane. It’s a windy day, so it’s a good time to try it out.

Then, Ann notices that the scarf she hung out to dry is gone! At first, she blames Watson for taking it as part of the trick Walter taught him. However, the dog is not at fault. Pedro uses his weather vane to show Ann how to find her scarf.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

It’s a fun picture book mystery, but it’s also educational. I liked the part where Pedro explains how he made his weather vane. Kids can follow along with his explanation to make a weather vane of their own. The mystery of what happened to the scarf isn’t difficult, but the way the children found the scarf was clever. The book also has a vocabulary list and glossary in the back.

Posted on by TracyC

The North Pole Mystery

The North Pole Mystery by Mary Blount Christian, illustrated by Joe Boddy, 1989.

This book is part of the Sherlock Street Detectives series.

David is supposed to be watching his younger brother, Adam, while his mother is gone, but he gets absorbed in his new book. When David’s friends come to see him, they realize that Adam is missing!

The kids look for Adam everywhere, but they can’t find him. David is very worried.

Walter tries to use his dog, Watson, to track down Adam, but Watson hasn’t been trained to track people. When that doesn’t work, Walter tries writing down everything David can remember about Adam’s disappearance, but because David was reading instead of watching, he can’t remember much.

One thing that David remembers is that Adam wanted to go for a walk. David didn’t want to go, so he let Adam play with his compass instead. David explained to Adam that a compass always points toward the North Pole, and that fascinated Adam because the North Pole is where Santa Claus lives. The kids realize that Adam still has the compass, so he is probably using it to go north and find Santa!

What they need to do is go north themselves to find Adam, but they don’t have another compass. What can they do?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

It’s a fun picture book mystery, but it’s also educational. The books in this series use scientific concepts to explain the mysteries or to help solve problems. This book explains how a compass works, and to find Adam, the kids have to create a compass of their own.

There is also a vocabulary list and glossary in the back of the book.

Posted on by TracyC

The Puzzling World of Winston Breen

The Puzzling World of Winston Breen by Eric Berlin, 2007.

Twelve-year-old Winston Breen loves puzzles! He looks for puzzles to solve everywhere, and he also loves to make to give puzzles to other people to solve. Usually, on his sister’s birthday, he likes to set up some kind of puzzle or treasure hunt to lead her to her present. However, the year his sister Katie turns ten years old, Winston almost forgot about her upcoming birthday party, so he didn’t have anything planned. In fact, he was lucky to find a nice present in time for the party, buying a pretty box that he saw in a curio shop at the last minute.

When Katie opens his present at the party and sees an empty box, she’s sure that the empty box must be another of his puzzle tricks. Winston tries to explain to her that it’s just a nice box, and there’s no puzzle this time, but to his surprise, Katie finds a puzzle in the box that Winston didn’t make or put there. It turns out that there’s a secret compartment in the box that contains thin strips of wood with letters on them. It looks like the kind of puzzle Winston loves and one he might have made if he had planned better this year, but as Winston explains to everyone, this isn’t his work. So, whose puzzle is it, and what does it mean?

Everyone at the party tries to guess what the puzzle means, and Winston has to reassure everyone multiple times that it’s really not one of his puzzles. In the end, they all decide to let Winston try to solve the puzzle and tell them the answer. However, Winston can’t seem to solve the puzzle! When he’s unable to solve it, his relatives really begin to believe him that he didn’t make it. Winston’s cousin, Henry, questions him about who had access to the box and where he got it in the first place. When Winston says that it got it at the curio shop, Henry points out that the curio shop owner also likes puzzles and has shared puzzles with Winston before. It seems logical that he’s the original source of this particular puzzle.

When Winston talks to the owner of the curio shop, he says that he had no idea that there was a puzzle in the box that Winston bought. The box was part of a larger set of items that came from the estate of a woman who died recently. The lady was one of the daughters of a wealthy inventor who was one of the founding members of their town, Walter Fredericks. One of Winston’s friends is doing a report about Walter Fredericks for school. The owner of the curio shop says that the last living member of the deceased lady’s family is her sister, who is the town’s librarian, and that maybe Winston should ask her about the puzzle. Winston’s friend needs some information about the inventor for his report anyway, so they decide to go to the library and talk to the librarian. However, when the boys try to talk to the librarian, she suddenly becomes upset when she sees Winston holding the pieces of the puzzle. She starts to cry, asks why “you people” can’t leave her alone, and yells at them to leave the library!

The boys have no idea what made the librarian react like that. Later, they are approached by a strange man who introduces himself as David North. He says that he saw what happened in the library, and he thinks that he can help. He calls himself a treasure hunter and explains that the reason why Winston hasn’t been able to solve the puzzle is that he’s missing some of the pieces. David North shows the boys that he has more of the pieces to the puzzle, and he suggests that they become partners, sharing their pieces with each other to solve the puzzle.

Before talking to Mr. North, the boys didn’t even know that the puzzle was the key to a treasure. They don’t know exactly what this treasure is or how Mr. North knew about it, and they’re not sure that they can trust him. Soon after meeting Mr. North, they are also approached by a man who calls himself Mickey Glowacka. This man explains that he’s also looking for the treasure. The boys ask him what treasure that is, and Glowacka says that the inventor hid a large sum of money. Glowacka also has a set of puzzle pieces, and he says that there is also a fourth set, the set that belongs to the local librarian.

Although Glowacka is more forthcoming than North was, Winston isn’t sure that he’s trustworthy, either. Then, the town librarian comes to see Winston to apologize for her fit at the library, and she explains the rest of the situation to Winston and his family. Walter Fredericks had four children. Except for the librarian, Mrs. Lewis, who was the youngest of his children, the others are all deceased. Their father was a fun-loving man who enjoyed games and puzzles, but the siblings never got along with each other. Mrs. Lewis says that her entire childhood was full of petty squabbles that she and her siblings never knew how to resolve with each other, so they just increased over the years. Before their wealthy father even died, she and her siblings argued over their eventual inheritance. There was one item in particular that all four of them wanted: a valuable ring that was given to their father by a prince to thank him for one of his inventions. After their father died, the four siblings went to claim their shares of the estate, but the lawyer informed them that the ring was not included with the rest of the estate. Instead, their father arranged one last puzzle for his four children to solve together. Each of his four children received a set of puzzle pieces, and they were told that they would have to work together to solve the puzzle and claim the ring. Mrs. Lewis realizes that her father was making one last effort to get his children to stop arguing and join forces, but a single puzzle would never be enough to resolve years of arguments and fighting. Instead, the siblings turned their backs on each other and on the puzzle, so it has gone unsolved for more than 20 years, and the ring is still hidden somewhere.

Since her other siblings died, one by one, their shares of the puzzle pieces have been purchased by other people as their estates have been sold off. That is how North and Glowacka acquired their sets of puzzle pieces from the estates of Mrs. Lewis’s brothers, similar to the way Winston accidentally bought the set that once belonged to Mrs. Lewis’s sister, Livia. Since Livia’s death, someone has become desperate to get as many of the remaining puzzle pieces as possible. Someone broke into Livia’s house soon after her death, before items from her estate were auctioned off, but this person was unable to find Livia’s set of puzzle pieces because they were hidden in the secret compartment in her box. Someone has also broken into Mrs. Lewis’s house to find her set of pieces, leaving her a threatening message. She has also received threatening phone calls and demands for her puzzle pieces, which is why she was so upset when she saw Winston approaching her with puzzle pieces. It seems logical that either North or Glowacka could be the one breaking into houses and threatening Mrs. Lewis, or it could even be both of them.

Mrs. Lewis has decided that the most sensible way to resolve this situation is to do what she and her siblings should have done years ago with each other: arrange for all the interested parties to work together to solve the puzzle and find the ring, then sell the ring and split the money. Winston’s father points out that doing this would mean including whoever it was who’s been threatening her for a share in the treasure, and it doesn’t seem right to reward that person. Mrs. Lewis decides that she’s willing to do that just to settle the matter and remove the reason for the person to keep harassing her. To keep everyone in line and ensure that everyone plays fair with each other, she has recruited a friend of hers who is a retired police officer to act as her representative and a referee for this game. North and Glowacka grudgingly agree to abide by the rules of the game.

Winston’s sister, Katie, declares that the puzzle pieces that were in the box are hers since they were part of her birthday present, and Winston reluctantly agrees, even though he’s the main puzzle person in the family and feels a little possessive of the puzzle because he’s driven to solve it. Of course, he is included in the game, both as his younger sister’s chaperon at group meetings and the family puzzle expert. At first, Katie is reluctant to split her share of the treasure with Winston because of his participation, but their father points out that she will be relying on his help in this game. As the owner of the puzzle pieces, she has the right to decide what Winston’s help is worth to her, so she will control how much of her share Winston will receive, but it’s only right that she let him have something in exchange for his help.

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

My Reaction

I enjoyed this book both for the mystery story and for the puzzles that appear throughout the book. Because Winston loves puzzles so much, he creates little puzzles and brain teasers for readers to solve throughout the book, and some people also give him puzzles and brain teasers of their own. Readers have the opportunity to solve these puzzles themselves, and the answers are in the back of the book.

The main mystery of this book was good. It has a particular set of suspects, everyone who is participating in the search for the ring and the solution to the puzzles. They must work together at the same time as they look at each other suspiciously. However, there is a twist to this story because there are more people involved with this series of puzzles than the obvious ones. There are people who are on the scene and have access to at least some of the clues who are not immediately obvious suspects, and I admit that I didn’t suspect these people at first.

There is a point where Winston himself becomes a suspect for a break-in at Mrs. Lewis’s house. I think the author meant this accusation against Winston to ramp up the suspense in the story, but it just irritated me because Winston is still a kid. He’s not old enough to have a driver’s license, and he’s still in that age where his movements are still limited and monitored by parents. It would have been more credible if he had been a teenager, with more ability to get around on his own, unsupervised and with less accountability.