Kirkus Reviews QR Code
THE MELON PATCH MYSTERY by Flavia Gag

THE MELON PATCH MYSTERY

By

Pub Date: Sept. 1st, 1964
Publisher: McKay

Pokey Plunkett, a blustery watermelon farmer, enters the Seedless Wonder Sugar Ball contest for the largest watermelon. Despite Pokey's careful tending, the melon patch is constantly being raided. He even goes so far as to install barbed wire fencing with a built in electric shock (the $200 prize money to be used to straighten his niece's buck teeth scarcely seems worth this much effort). Eventually Pokey discovers that the culprit is his pet raccoon. At the same time he runs across a 7 foot watermelon growing in a pile of discarded fish fertilizer. The dialogue is flat in spite of Pokey's Yankee oaths. The mystery and humor are just as insubstantial.