Posted on by TracyC

Terror on Cemetery Hill

cemeteryhillTerror on Cemetery Hill by Drew Stevenson, 1996.

Halloween is coming, and spooky things are happening around Wilsonburg. Randall Davis, a new boy in town, comes to the diner looking for Sarah because he’s heard that she likes to investigate mysteries. Randall’s mother has recently become the caretaker of the cemetery, and Randall enjoys astronomy, so he decided one night to take his telescope up on top of Cemetery Hill. While he was there, he saw what looked like a hideous monster. Randall asks Sarah to have a look around the cemetery and help him figure out what he saw.

After some persuading, Sarah convinces Clark and Frog to come with her. Not only do they see the creature in the cemetery, but they find Mrs. Biddle, head of the town’s group of psychic investigators, unconscious in the Wilson family mausoleum. The Wilsons are the family that the town was named after. Mrs. Biddle and her group have been told before not to hold any ceremonies or investigations in the cemetery because they disturb people.  She insists that she was investigating the creature in the cemetery and that it pushed her and knocked her out. Something strange is going on in the cemetery, but is it a creature come back from the dead, or maybe something to do with the recent bank robbery in town?

Everyone believes that the bank robbery was just one in a series of robberies staged across the country by a robber known as the Village Bandit because he tends to rob banks in small towns.  However, Sarah has a different theory.

This is part of the Sarah Capshaw Mysteries series.  It is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

One Ghost Too Many

oneghostOne Ghost Too Many by Drew Stevenson, 1991.

Clark Lannigan meets Sarah Capshaw by accident when she comes to spend the summer with her grandparents in Wilsonburg. Sarah’s grandfather, Conrad Capshaw, is a lawyer, and he is handling the estate of Rodney Maplewood. Rodney Maplewood used to be a museum curator and had an impressive collection of antiques which he kept in his large house, Maplewood Manor.

Maplewood Manor is the oldest and the spookiest house in town. It was once owned by the eccentric Antonia Whitemarsh, who was a spiritualist and believed that her father’s spirit still inhabited the house. Now, people in town think that Rodney Maplewood’s ghost is also haunting the house because lights have been seen in the house at night. Conrad Chapshaw also says that, although nothing is missing, some objects in the house have been moved around.

oneghostpic1Sarah persuades Clark and his friend “Frog” Fenniman to join her investigation of the house, but besides the resident ghost, they will also have to deal with a local group interested in psychic phenomena and a mysterious stranger who is paying the local bully to spy on the house.

This is the first book in the Sarah Capshaw Mysteries series.  Sarah and her parents move to Wilsonburg, and she has other adventures with Clark and Frog, all narrated by Clark.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Wrapped in a Riddle

wrappedriddleWrapped in a Riddle by Sharon E. Heisel, 1993.

Miranda is living with her grandmother in Oregon while her scientist parents are away studying algae in Antarctica. Her grandmother owns a bed and breakfast called The Jumping Frog, which has a Mark Twain theme. At first, all Miranda is concerned about is finding some friends and fitting in at her new school, but soon strange things start to happen at the bed and breakfast.

First, someone attacks their housekeeper, hitting her over the head with a bust of Mark Twain. Then, some letters that were written to an ancestor of Miranda’s by Mark Twain himself are stolen.

Although Miranda’s grandmother likes to think the best of everyone, Miranda is convinced that the villain is someone living in the bed and breakfast. With her new friends (the main characters from A Little Magic, another book by the same author) Miranda begins her investigation, determined to find the letters for her grandmother, although it may mean solving a double mystery.  There is more that one person in the bed and breakfast with something to hide.

One of the fun things about this story is the riddles that Miranda and her grandmother like to tell each other.  Even her friends enjoy riddles, and they help provide Miranda with the inspiration to solve the mystery.

This book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Mystery Aboard the Ocean Princess

MysteryOceanPrincessMystery Aboard the Ocean Princess by Robin Gottlieb, 1967.

Jill Washburn is about to make her first trip to Europe on the same ship as a priceless painting!  Her Uncle Chow and Aunt Rose have invited her to accompany them on the cruise ship to Europe over the summer because her cousin Connie isn’t enthusiastic about the trip, and they thought that the girls would be good company for each other.  Lately, Connie has been trying to act ultra-sophisticated, declaring anything and everything that she doesn’t think is cool to be simply “tedious” (Connie loves big words, and “tedious” is her pet word).

Jill is fascinated by the presence of the famous painting on the ship, a painting of a young Spanish prince by Goya, “Don Manuel Osorio de Zuñiga.”  Jill loves art, and her ambition in life is to be an art teacher, like her father.  She has also read about recent art thefts in the newspaper and wonders whether Don Manuel is at risk during its journey.  She can’t help but seek out the room where the painting is kept and talk to one of the guards about security.  The guard just tells her that he appreciates her concern but that everything is under control.  But later, Jill finds the guard meeting secretly with a mysterious man by the lifeboats.

MysteryOceanPrincessPicCould the two men be plotting to steal the painting?  Jill persuades Connie to help her investigate and spy on the them, but things aren’t what they seem.

A mysterious gift left in Uncle Chow and Aunt Rose’s cabin frames Jill’s aunt and uncle for art theft.  Although Connie thinks their snooping has caused enough problems already, Jill thinks that the only way to clear their names is for her and Connie to find the real thieves.  With the ship’s costume ball coming up, Jill comes up with a daring scheme to get the thieves’ attention and hopefully get them to reveal themselves.  One thing is for sure: Connie was wrong about this trip being “tedious.”

Posted on by TracyC

The Mystery in Dracula’s Castle

MysteryDraculasCastleThe Mystery in Dracula’s Castle by Vic Crume, 1973.

This is a novelization of a live action Disney movie of the same name and contains photographs of scenes from the movie. The title of the book and the movie is a little misleading because, although the main characters are unaware of what is going on for most of the story, the audience finds out pretty quickly who the bad guys are and what they’re doing. In a way, it’s kind of like a Columbo story where the suspense is in watching the hero figure it all out. Also, there is no real castle or Dracula. Sorry. 😦 In spite of these short-comings, it’s still a fun story, and although the movie has not been released on dvd, it is possible to see it on YouTube (as of this writing).

Alfie and Leonard are spending yet another summer at their family’s beach house in a small town while their mother works on the new book she’s writing. They think this summer is going to be dull, but with jewel thieves in town, it soon becomes apparent that it’s anything but!

MysteryDraculasCastlePicAlfie is an aspiring film maker. Specifically, he wants to make horror movies, and he talks his younger brother into playing the part of Dracula in his latest Super 8 film. Leonard is only a reluctant vampire because he doesn’t like horror movies. He really wants to be a detective, like Sherlock Holmes. Back home, he and his brother saw police investigating the scene of a robbery at a jewelry store, and he’s decided that he wants to investigate crimes like that. Soon after they arrive at the beach house, Leonard adopts a stray dog and names him Watson so that he can be his sidekick.

Alfie laughs at his brother’s detective fantasies, but Leonard gets his chance to prove himself when they become involved with the thieves who robbed the jewelry store. The location that Alfie has picked for his movie is an old lighthouse, which he thinks looks like Dracula’s castle, and that is where the thieves are staying.  With the sheriff’s daughter acting as their baby-sitter and the heroine of their film and the necklace ending up in Leonard’s hands by accident, the thieves struggle to get it back before Leonard realizes what it is and where it came from.

This book is currently available through Internet Archive.  When the movie first aired on tv, it was shown in two parts.  Internet Archive also has the second part of the movie, but not the first (at least, not right now).  Sometimes, you can find part or all of the movie on YouTube.

Posted on by TracyC

The Case of the Lost Lookalike

LostLookalike

The Case of the Lost Lookalike by Carol Farley, 1988.

“I want to swoop in and spout out the answers to baffling mysteries while everyone around me blinks in befuddlement.  I want to reveal the amazing solutions to puzzles while everyone gasps in admiration.  Except the criminal, of course, who gasps for other reasons.”
— Flee Jay Saylor

This is the second book in the the Flee Jay and Clarice Mysteries.

In The Case of the Lost Lookalike, Flee Jay and Clarice are spending the summer at a lake with their aunt, and someone there says that Clarice is the very image of a little girl named Caroline who was apparently kidnapped 40 years ago.  Little Caroline disappeared from her own bedroom one night after her mother died under rather suspicious circumstances.  Most people assume that Caroline is dead, too.  The girl’s father is now a strange recluse who lives on an island in the middle of the lake.

LostLookalikePic

But, as the girls puzzle over this old mystery, other mysterious things begin to happen.  A woman produces pictures of the missing girl which look nothing like Clarice.  Then, her shop is broken into, and the pictures of Caroline disappear.

When someone persuades their aunt to let the girls visit the old recluse on the island, the man’s reaction is surprising, and they come to realize that Caroline’s disappearance might not be the real issue at all.  Clarice takes some frightening risks to get to the bottom of the mystery!

My Reaction

In a way, this story is two mysteries in one because Clarice figures out what really happened to Caroline when she disappeared years ago at the same time that the girls unravel the mystery that is affecting people who live in the small town by the lake now.  The mystery of what happened to Caroline would not have resurfaced at this particular time if someone else hadn’t brought up the issue as a distraction from something else.

What I like best about this series is the sense of humor and the way that Flee Jay says things as she narrates the story: “I mean, new cottages and magic lakes are terrific and all that, but nothing can ever take the place of a peanut-butter, brown sugar, and banana sandwich.”