Trixie Belden #3 The Gatehouse Mystery by Julie Campbell

 

The Wheeler's large property includes an old abandoned Gatehouse that the girls and Bobby decide to explore.

Bobby rushes in the doorway before he can be stopped. He trips and lands on a sharp piece of glass that turns out to be a diamond.  It's not even buried, it was just lying non the surface of the dirt floor.

Naturally Trixie speculates that jewel thieves dropped it here, and will be back for it.  She wants to hold onto the diamond till they can figure out who the thieves are, and why they were here.  Honey reluctantly agrees and says she has a safe place for it.

Suddenly both girls hear a rustling in the shrubbery outside the Gatehouse and as they run out to see who has been listening, the person gets away.

Trixie's brothers are back from camp, and they're all in for trying to solve the mystery as well, and capture the thieves.  This is the first time we meet smart aleck Mart and cool headed Brian.  They're perfect additions to the group we know of Trixie, Honey and Jim.  Everyone brings something useful to the solving of mysteries.

Two suspicious new hires are watched carefully in case they're the thieves.  All possible clues are examined.  A club is formed and the Gatehouse is eyed as a possible club house.

I mostly enjoyed the introduction of the brothers to the group, and how easily everyone got along right away.  The mystery of the jewel thieves was intriguing though one of the thieves gave himself away pretty quickly.

Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #2)

 

Nancy's father has a huge case involving a railroad claim that results in threats against his life.  

Issuing the threats is Nathan Gomber, who comes to the Drew house and tells Nancy her father is in danger.   She'd better stick right by him or she'll regret what happens to him because she doesn't care enough to be there.

Nancy has just agreed to help her friend Helen with the strange case of a haunting at her aunt's home called Twin Elms.  The haunting is recent, and old though the house is, there's been no history of ghosts there.

Furniture moves, music plays, food is stolen from the kitchen by the ghost.  A chandelier sways. 

Carson insists she go help her friend, as he needs to go out of town for a few days to work on his railroad case.  With misgivings, Nancy agrees.

Arriving at Twin Elms, it isn't long before Nancy experiences the disturbances that Rosemary and Flora have asked for help with.

Nancy is on the job immediately. checking all around the outside of the house for foot prints, looking for unlocked doors or windows.  With no luck there, Nancy decides this old house could have a secret passage that someone very human is using to terrorize Rosemary and her mother.  She conducts a thorough search of the house. Every room, every wall, every piece of furniture that could conceal a secret door.  She searches the outbuildings and the cellar for underground tunnels.

To her surprise, the awful Nathan Gomber appears at the mansion, trying to cajole Flora into selling the house to him cheaply, as no one would want a haunted house.

Nancy has to find out how the "ghost" is getting in and out of the rooms of the mansion, disappearing at will after frightening everyone.

She becomes frantic when her father is kidnapped on his way to the house after arriving at the local  train station.

Logic, steel nerves, quick thinking, that's Nancy.

I wish I'd read these when I was young.  So far, Nancy's a great amateur detective.

Review: The Art Forger by B. A. Shapiro

 

Based on a real museum theft, the Art Forger has as many layers as the painting that's copied: After the Bath by Degas.

Claire Roth does reproductions of famous paintings for a living while she waits for her moment as an artist in her own right.

She's asked by a prominent art gallery owner to make a copy of what he says is an original work that was stolen in the art museum theft years ago.  She will be paid well, and she will get a showing of her own art at his gallery when all is accomplished.

Claire recognizes that the "original" painting she's been hired to copy is also a copy.  She knows she should tell the gallery owner, but too much is at stake for her personally. Also, what if he is testing her?  

The painting is begun, on a canvas that held another painting from the same era to help it seem authentic.  

She also begins to research who might have made the copy she's working from.  Is it a modern day forgery or one done in Degas time?  She knows her forgers, having studied them and their techniques as part of her job copying paintings.

In a series of letters Claire doesn't see, but the reader is given, we see the story behind the original painting and a reason for a forgery to have been displayed at the Gardner Museum, perhaps from the beginning.

When the gallery owner is arrested after selling her fake, her own freedom is at stake as she continues to try to locate the original painting or its fate.

This is our book group book for January.  I found the first half of the book focusing on painting methodology to be slow, but the second half to be suspenseful and entertaining.

Review: Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Old Clock: Nancy Drew Mysteries #1

 

 A little girl is nearly run over by a moving van as Nancy Drew approaches along the same road.  The girl manages to cross the road and climbs up onto a short wall.  Safe for a moment, she then loses her balance and topples to the ground below.

Nancy pulls her own car over and rushes to the girls aid.  Assessing the girl and judging her to be unharmed, Nancy carries her home.

The girls aunts come running out.  As they make sure the girl is ok, they pour out their hearts to Nancy, saying they took her in when her parents died, and they wish to give her a good life, but fear as they grow older it may not be possible.  They had expected an inheritance from a relative that did not come through.  

Greedy relations who didn't need the money at all had cared for the relative, and a will was drawn up leaving them all of his wealth.

They mention other relatives and friends had been given the impression that they'd be taken care of as well.  They're sure that another will exists that would have taken care of everyone as promised.

After speaking with the friends and relatives involved, Nancy believes them, and that there must be another will.

Taking on the investigation, Nancy questions everyone she can think of, she eavesdrops shamelessly, and has several rough encounters with thieves who may possess a stolen clock that holds the key to everything.

In this first Nancy Drew mystery, Nancy and her family and friends do everything they can to right wrongs and solve the mystery of the missing will.

Nancy is clever, fearless and big hearted. I love how she tools around the countryside in her blue convertible.

Plotting and pacing are fast, and characters (who are not villains) are likeable.

Murder On The Orient Express by Agatha Christie

 

 

 

I’ve never read Murder On the Orient Express before, and I have somehow managed not to see a single film version of it.  I’ve seen film clips over the years, and formed an impression of the story.  Going in, I “knew” who committed the crime, but not how or why.

As with all of Christie’s Poirot novels so far, (I’ve been reading one a month since January of this year), the presentation of the mystery and the interviewing of the suspects is very enjoyable.

Nothing quite adds up, even for the reader, until Poirot is ready with his reveal.

 

Poirot ravels on a packed train from Istanbul to Calais, with plans to go on to England from there.

At a snowy, unplanned stop, a traveler is murdered.  The victim has been touring Europe under an assumed name, and is in fact guilty of heinous crimes in America.

Poirot is asked to investigate by the head of the train line, an old friend, who is also traveling aboard the train.

Working with a doctor who is onboard, Poirot investigates the crime scene.

We know Poirot disdains the traditional methods of detection, such as solving the crime by some miniscule piece of evidence.  At this crime scene, however, clues are writ large upon the scene.

Stab wounds, and there are many of them, are at angles that suggest both a left handed and a right handed assailant.  Differing wound depths, suggesting frailty and strength.

An unusual flat match that looks nothing like those the victim used.  A ladies handkerchief.  A pipe cleaner.  Someone, maybe more than one person, appears to have planted clues galore.

As Poirot’s interviews begin, everyone seems to be outright lying or openly holding something back.

How will Poirot deal with all of the contradictions?

The solution to the crime and the meting out of justice was oddly touching.