Another enjoyable case from the Whiz Tanner files.
In this sixth middle-grade adventure novel in a series, two young detectives investigate an injured carrier pigeon, a mysterious message, and a lost treasure.
In the small town of Jasper Springs, criminals often meet their match in the Tanner-Dent Detective Agency, consisting of two meddling sixth-graders: Joey Dent and Wilson “Whiz” Tanner. Although Police Chief Reid doesn’t like to admit it, the youngsters have solved some knotty cases. Joey, or “Agent K” for detecting purposes, is the “Director of Field Operations,” meaning he does most of the running around, while Whiz, or “Agent M,” is “Chief Investigator,” the mastermind of the outfit. As the novel opens, the detectives are speeding (by bicycle) to the local veterinarian after discovering an injured bird—a carrier pigeon with a mysterious coded message. Dr. Wolfe removes the pellet that someone shot at the bird, who will live to fly again—but who owns this feathered friend, and what does the message mean? In their headquarters—a sophisticated “Crime Lab,” housed underground in Whiz’s backyard—Whiz decodes the jumbled message, but it remains cryptic. They find the pigeon’s owner, Sally Kelly, but her boyfriend, Bob Weston—the last person who possessed the bird—is missing, his college dorm room ransacked. Several adventures, a rescue, and an enigmatic college dissertation lead to answers—and buried treasure. Rexroad (Whiz Tanner and the Secret Tunnel, 2018, etc.) again provides an entertaining mystery that hearkens back to series like the Three Investigators. As in previous books, the vintage feeling is heightened by a strange paucity of modern communication devices outside the Crime Lab, which doesn’t always make sense; Sally, for example, lives in her own house, but she can’t afford internet access. The boys’ personalities are nicely balanced; Whiz is a Holmes-like genius, while Joey, the Watson-like narrator, is a more relatable, ordinary kid, often distracted by mundane matters, such as baseball tryouts and his perplexing feelings for aspiring seventh-grade detective Jessica Carlton. Although the adventure isn’t quite as exciting as the previous installment’s, it will still keep readers guessing.
Another enjoyable case from the Whiz Tanner files.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-946650-14-6
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Awesome Quest Mysteries
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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