The live-wire young sleuth who debuted in Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief (p. 502) catapults into another headlong caper after scotching a murder attempt on Halloween. Nerving themselves to approach a spooky house while out trick-or-treating, Sammy and her friends find the door open, a fire set on the floor and reclusive old Chauncey LeBard tied to a chair. A robbery, it seems—but what’s missing? Books, as it turns out: a collection of high-spot first editions. Being incurably nosy, Sammy commences to pry with a will, meanwhile countering hateful classmate Heather’s latest sly attempt at character assassination by setting up a devastating public denouement. As readers of the first book know, it’s not as if Sammy’s life isn’t already complicated; she lives illegally with her grandmother in modest seniors-only housing while her mother is pursuing Hollywood dreams, has to fend off a suspicious neighbor, and keep up with her schoolwork in the face of multiple distractions. Artfully throwing in clues, red herrings, and well-timed revelations, Van Draanen keeps her heroine on the hop, surrounding her with typecast age mates but distinctly drawn, individual adults, most of whom were introduced in the previous book. Sammy is as resourceful and tough as ever, and the breathless pace of this adventure will rivet readers from page one. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-679-88850-0
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers fond of lightweight mysteries solved by spunky heroines will take to this fiction debut, though a heavy ballast of tragedy and near-tragedy keeps it low to the ground. Having used the discovery of an empty hunting cabin as an excuse to form a secret club, Iris and four friends spin news reports of missing carnival receipts and the (supposedly) accidental death of the cabin’s owner, Ol’ Man Hazard, into an exciting scenario involving hidden loot and murder. Then they find a cryptic rhymed clue that mentions treasure, which they take as a broad hint that they’re on the right track. The story is carried along on sad undercurrents: Iris, called “illegitimate” by another girl in the opening pages, learns that her parents weren’t married when her father was killed in the Korean War; her tough grandmother is rushed to the hospital with severe pneumonia; Iris sets fire to the cabin and nearly suffocates inside; and the reclusive Ol’ Lady Hazard, thought to be a witch and chief suspect in her husband’s death, turns out to be the sickly, abused widow of a cruel alcoholic. While the plot never develops a compelling pace, and the story’s lessons are laid out in a concluding book report on Silas Marner, some of the dialogue and set pieces show a promising authorial gift for comedy. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1999
ISBN: 0-8234-1467-1
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
The plot thickens but is still far from crystallizing in this madcap sequel to The Mysterious Howling (2010). Transplanted to London while repairs are being made to manorial Ashton Place in the wake of the last episode’s disastrous climax, inexperienced but resourceful governess Penelope Lumley looks forward to shepherding her three young charges—still acquiring a veneer of civilization after having been supposedly raised in the forest by wolves—about the great city. Unsurprisingly, events quickly get out of hand. Except for the occasional self-indulgent aside (listing real but irrelevant 19th-century tourist guides, for instance), the narrative voice continues to develop, thanks to diversions into such niceties as the difference between “optimism” and “optoomuchism” and pterodomania (the study of ferns). When not digressing, the narrator keeps the plot aboil, stirring in vague warnings and (of course) references to a prophecy, characters with ambiguous identities, astonishing apparent coincidences and tasty elements such as a cast of theatrical (but also possibly real) pirates and a strange guidebook that furnishes Penelope with obviously-significant Clues to her own obscure past as well as that of the children’s. Great fun, and it wouldn’t be optoomuchstic to expect more to come. Includes frequent full-page line drawings, not seen. (Melodrama. 10-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-179112-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011
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