193D: Young adult book with boy hero chasing spies

Kids fiction. I probably read it in the late 1970s. A boy is worried that he’s discovered a spy or crime situation. One memorable scene: he and his grandmother (I believe he lived with her) are talking about it and he’s afraid their room is bugged so he makes them sit under a blanket to talk. There were simple line drawing illustrations which didn’t concern themselves much with actual human proportions.

2 thoughts on “193D: Young adult book with boy hero chasing spies

  1. Amanda

    One book from the 70s that had the “Is the neighbor a spy?” theme is 51 Sycamore Lane, by Marjorie Sharmat, which was part of the Weekly Reader series. (If there was a chicken involved, it’s almost certainly this one.)

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  2. Trish

    Could this be “The Kidnappers Upstairs” by Eileen Rosenbaum, 1968? Mine was a Scholastic paperback. The illustrations weren’t exactly simple but they were a bit wacky in a very period style. The boy and his grandmother, iirc, live in a NYC apartment and he thinks the spies are living upstairs. They go to various city places like St. Patrick’s Cathedral and maybe a museum; she rides on the back of his bike, which was the cover illustration.

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