by Pete Hautman & Mary Logue ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 10, 2007
After their successful sleuthing in Snatched (2006), Brian Bain and Roni Delicata are ready to solve more mysteries in their little town of Bloodwater. Fred Bloodwater, a real-estate developer, is planning on building condominiums on Indian Bluff, but Brian and Roni believe a local professor’s assertion that there are important Native American remains in caves on the bluff. When the professor is beaten and left unconscious, the intrepid detectives are on the case. Who was responsible for the assault? The professor’s ex-fiancée? Fred Bloodwater’s cute (but stupid) teenage son? A skunk-cabbage-obsessed botanist? Moreover, Brian is sure he has seen the Native American remains, in the form of a now-missing skull the professor called “Yorick.” This occasionally uneasy merger of realism and a more over-the-top Scooby Doo/Indiana Jones–style adventure can be jarring. Nevertheless, the adventures of these meddlesome junior sleuths, with the mystery’s tension cut by gentle humor, are quite entertaining. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: May 10, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-399-24378-3
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Sleuth/Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2007
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by Elizabeth Honey ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1998
paper 1-55037-514-8 The young people of Stella Street rightly suspect that their nasty, secretive new neighbors are up to no good in this rollicking farce. Henni, her younger sister Danielle, her friend Zev, and 6-year-old neighbor Frank watch in awe as the couple they dub “The Phonies” throw money around like there’s no tomorrow: They re-do their house in white (including the carpets); exchange their new Bentley for an even newer Mercedes; and, judging from their trash, travel all over the world. Henni narrates in a chatty, loose-jointed style, back-tracking, pausing to introduce her friends, interposing handwritten letters to God and the complaint notices from solicitors and government agencies that begin to arrive in volume at Frank’s house. A little snooping and a library book about money-laundering put Henni and friends on the right track; when Zev breaks open a bowling ball stuffed with cash that the Phonies are trying to smuggle out of the country, the jig’s up, but only after a wild airport chase scene. Unpracticed readers will sail through the short, dialogue-heavy chapters as this gaggle of young sleuths squares off against a truly odious pair of neighbors. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: May 1, 1998
ISBN: 1-55037-515-6
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1998
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by Elizabeth Honey ; illustrated by Elizabeth Honey
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by Elizabeth Honey & Sue Johnson & illustrated by Elizabeth Honey
by Chris Mould & illustrated by Chris Mould ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2008
A prolific British illustrator makes a rare foray across the pond with this faintly Gothic series opener. Eleven-year-old Stanley is amazed to learn that he’s inherited an old mansion in Crampton Rock—a distant seaside town whose residents turn out to include a candy-store owner who changes into a werewolf every night, a trio of menacing (if ineffectual pirates) and a supposedly dead pike that utters cryptic warnings. Fortunately, Stanley is a clever, doughty lad, well capable of blasting the werewolf with a silver bullet, tricking the pirates into barrels and weathering other challenges with just occasional help from adult allies. Mould adds plenty of comically ghoulish ink drawings and silhouettes to his fluently written tale, and sets up a continuing plotline that leads to encounters with a decapitated ghost and more pirates in the next episode, The Icy Hand (ISBN: 978-159643-385-4, also September). Fine fare for fans of the likes of Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell’s Far-Flung Adventures series or Philip Ardagh’s Eddie Dickens trilogy. (Fantasy. 9-11)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59643-383-0
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2008
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by Tom Jackson ; illustrated by Chris Mould
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by Matt Haig ; illustrated by Chris Mould
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by Greg Gormley ; illustrated by Chris Mould
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