THE CASE OF THE MISSING CHEETAH

Three girls stumble upon a group of lady spies and convince them to let them join their group.

In this series opener, Peggy, Rita, and Dot are frustrated spies without a case. One dark and stormy night, they are bored and decide to venture out of their clubhouse when they see a mysterious figure walking the streets in the middle of the night. (Why these seemingly parentless children find that peculiar when they themselves are also up way past bedtime is anyone’s guess.) It turns out to be Miss Khan, their teacher, who invites them inside for hot chocolate but is twitchy when Dot opens a door and sees a group of women gathering secretly. The next morning Rita sees a woman in the newspaper she recognizes from Miss Khan’s, and they rush back to the teacher’s home. That woman? Josephine Baker, the famed dancer suspected of being a spy. The girls confront the women and express their desire to be sleuths and spies as well, and Josephine conveniently has a mystery for them to solve: Her pet cheetah has been kidnapped. The girls eagerly take on the job. Delightful pencil illustrations with spots of bright yellow appear on every spread, but they can’t save this poorly paced story. All the lady spies are based on real people (even the cheetah!), though they were not contemporaries, as the brief bios in the backmatter attest. The attempted noir tone feels ungrounded because of its slippery connection to time and world history. Rita presents Black and Peggy White; Dot appears to be a girl of color.

All the ingredients are there, but something went wrong in the cooking process.