Category Archives: Mystery

265E: A girl wants to be an investigative reporter (Solved)

I’m looking for a book that I would have read no later than 1992. It was almost certainly published in the mid/late 80s or very early 90’s. A light, funny YA (possibly upper-middle grade or tween) book in the vein of Ellen Conford or Paula Danziger, although I don’t believe it was actually by either of them. The version I read was a hardcover, with an illustrated cover that was more cartoonish than realistic. I believe the cover features a girl in a dumpster or garbage can, although it’s possible that was just an episode in the book that I’m conflating with the cover in my memory.

It’s about a girl who wants to be an investigative reporter. She’s working for the school newspaper and begins to uncover some kind of light mystery. (Not a murder or anything like that.) The most specific thing that sticks out in my mind is that the girl and her friend use a lot of lingo and abbreviations in casual conversation, including the shorthand “L.L.A.” to mean “lifelong ambition.”

I believe the title has the girl’s name in it. I feel like the title might have a similar construction to Otherwise Known As Sheila the Great, although it’s obviously not that book. The book is also not Buffalo Brenda by Jill Pinkwater. Anyway, it’s driving me crazy. (I still think about my L.L.A.’s all the time.) Please help me put this to rest!

265B: ’80s or ’90s children’s books about a lottery mystery (Solved)

This one has been bugging me for years! I read this book in the late ’80s or early ’90s, and I don’t remember much about it other than these two things: (1) there was some sort of mystery with a lottery ticket, and I’m pretty sure what had happened was that the guy selling tickets at the store somehow knew the ticket was a winner and kept it for himself – I want to say the person who was trying to buy it was mentally challenged in some way perhaps, or there was some other reason why he thought the person wouldn’t appreciate the winning ticket; and (2) there’s a scene where the main character (a young girl) is in a body of water and trying to hide from a boat – I’m pretty sure it’s night and that she is floating in an inner tube, and to hide, she ducks her head inside the tube. Oh, and I think the cover was edged in a bright blue. Thanks!

256F: Kids move away, create secret clues (Solved)

This is a kids book I read in the 1970’s – paperback. It is about two families and one family with two children move away. The second family’s children are very sad. Suddenly, mysterious clues start appearing around and the old family has to decipher the clues. It leads them somewhere, like through the woods, to where the new family had moved to.

254A: Small chapter book on solving mysteries (Solved)

Okay, this book was maybe from the early- to mid- 90’s, and is a “mystery” book, but wasn’t a series – it had several small chapters, with a story and a picture. Based on the story, and the picture, you had to try and solve the “mystery”. They were simple – one took place in a school classroom where a small windmill made out of popsicle sticks had been broken, and the reader had to figure out if the open window and a strong gust of wind broke it, or if another classmate did. The answers (and specific hints about the clues that helped to solve it) were all in the back.

252D: : Children’s Book series from 1980’s

I remember a series of children’s mystery books from when I was in 1st grade, which would’ve been 1987-1988. Each book in the series had the same color hard cover. The hard cover was thin and maybe glossy. I remember a series having an orange cover, but there was a different series from the same author or publisher that had a different color hard cover.

From my memory, I seem to remember there being a British-ness to the books. Some took place in a city, others in the country.

I remember liking the books and now that I have children, I’d like to read these books to them.

Thanks!
Augustus

244A: UK Children’s Mystery (Solved)

Looking for a UK children’s mystery novel published 1960-1970. Plot revolves around policeman stumped by robberies in which getaway vehicle is Morris Minor/Mini that always disappears. Case solved when officer notices (autistic?) boy who copies down all vehicle registration plate numbers while sitting on overpass daily, and from lists finds that ambulance always goes past shortly after robbery. Turns out the Morris is small enough to fit into ambulance. Officer risks job by insisting on searching every ambulance in vicinity after next robbery, and finds getaway car inside ambulance. Black and white sketch illustrations; probably library binding. Originally found in elementary school library in Southern California before 1974.

243I: Isle of Capri (Solved)

Children’s fantasy book from the 50s, 60s or 70s, something about “the Isle of Capri”. I think the cover was basic – black and white, or dark green and white. Perhaps there was a butler and a big house…there was some sort of magic going on, I think. The Isle of Capri might have been spelled “Capris.”  I remember that a child goes to a big house, a mansion, to live and there are mysteries and strange things going on. That’s all I can remember!

233H: Adult fiction with descendants of Jesus of Nazareth

Twins, Roslyn Chapel, descendants of Jesus of Nazareth
Adult mystery about the secret descendants of Jesus of Nazareth. A girl and her grandfather are the main characters. At the end of the book they come to Roslyn Chapel where they go into a hidden underground chamber and where they meet the girl’s grandmother and twin brother, whom she didn’t know existed. It’s not The Da Vinci Code, I must have read it 10-15 years earlier.