Posted on by TracyC

Mystery Madness

Mystery Madness by Otto Coontz, 1982.

While Murray’s parents are on vacation, his older sister, Blanche, is in charge of the house. One day, he calls Blanche to get a ride home from the dentist and hears what he thinks is Blanche shooting their housekeeper.

Earlier that morning, he had heard Blanche talking on the phone to someone about a gun. Then, when he calls home, a friend of Blanche’s, Harold, answers, and Murray hears a gun going off in the background and Blanche apologizing to the housekeeper and talking about blood on the carpet. When Murray gets home, his mother’s Persian rug is missing and sees what appears to be a head in a bucket under the sink in the kitchen, further proof that the housekeeper is dead and that her blood stained the carpet.

Murray doesn’t know what to do because he is sure that his sister would never shoot anyone on purpose, and he doesn’t want to see her go to jail. He consults a private detective, Mat Cloak, who he met in a doughnut shop, for help.

The detective agrees to look into the case, and along the way, he realizes that it has connections to a case that he is already investigating. What really happened to the housekeeper? Is Blanche really guilty of murder? Moreover, who is the strange man who is following Murray around?

It’s a very funny story with some twists that readers won’t be able to guess right away. Part of the mystery is pretty obvious because Blanche is a theater student, but the real mystery is one that Murray isn’t even trying to solve and the real villain is someone who Murray thinks is a victim.

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

Posted on by TracyC

Coffin on a Case

CoffinCaseCoffin 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.