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!
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.
Children’s book, read this, maybe, in the late 60’s. It’s a mystery that starts with, I think, children finding a clue in a large (almost life size?) automaton, or moving mechanical toy, of a child playing an instrument. There are three of these automatons, one who plays a small piano, created by a gifted artist. The stories are about the children’s hunt to find the entire set. Toward the end of the book they meet a woman who is related to the artist.
Read this in late 70s from school library, was old book. Paperback in landscape orientation, man looks for clues, crawls through tunnel under lake to island and lighthouse(?). Think it was a ghost?
My 4th grade teacher in 1958-59 read us a chapter-a-day in a children’s book about a group of kids trying to solve a mystery. While trailing a bunch of crooks, the smell of the kids’ mosquito spray (quinine) gave them away. Calpurnia was the housekeeper.
I’m not sure whether these were actually children’s/middle-readers books, but I loved them as a kid. Each two-page puzzle had a full black-and-white line-drawing illustration of a mystery on the left page, and a little exposition with leading questions on the right, to help the reader solve the mystery. The mysteries were things like “Who tampered with the paddles before the rowing competition?” and “How did the baby get downstairs in the elevator?” and “Who stole all the chickens from the coop?” I forget whether there were murders to solve too, but most of them were all-ages-friendly puzzles. Each book probably had 20 or 30 mysteries to solve, with answers in the back of the book. It was a series of largish paperback books–I’m pretty sure I had at least two or three of them–and I was reading them in the early-to-mid ’90s. Thank you!
Publication: I believe this book was published in about 1969 or 1970.
Genre: Early teen to Pre-teen mystery, possibly bought from Scholastic Books
Plot: A young girl with the last name Duncan solves a mystery of some missing diamond jewelry. She ends up finding the thief, a lady new to town who goes everywhere with her poodle. The diamonds were hidden in the puff on the poodle’s head. Story takes place in the summer. One chapter in the book describes a garden party where the main character’s friend dresses in matching mother-daughter outfit with her mom. Main character appreciates her own mom as dressing in an “unfussy” way.
Strangers wake up on desert island. Each has a trunk with personal belongings. One has cigarettes in his. Have no memory of what happened before or why/how they had a trunk. Had to learn to live together successfully. Vaguely recall it was some sort of experiment, maybe alien. Published in 60s/70s?
Young Adult book about 2 estranged cousins who team up on a ranch to hunt for a lost family gold mine. One of the cousins breaks his leg at some point. They find secret messages inside canes that when wrapped around the handles form letters. They eventually find one of their ancestors dead in a cave. There was something about Archimedes as well and using water displacement as a measure I think. Read it in the early 80s but no idea how old it was.
I’m attempting to find two YA novels (may be part of a longer series) featuring best friends Kim (tall, thin, blonde) & Alexa (name may not be exact; small, brunette), 13-15yo, amateur detectives. One book features them at riding camp, investigating twin sisters who may be planning to kill male counselor who impregnated one sister. In one scene, they hike through a cave with stalactites and stalagmites. The other book features a mysterious death at a neighbor’s house where college/20-smtg friends of neighbor’s child(ren) are staying; they are involved in drugs and may have faked friend’s death by drowning him/her in swimming pool. I seem to recall the author had a woman’s name. The last I saw these books was in my secondary school library in the late 1980s/early 1990s. I would guess they were published in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Any help appreciated!