Category Archives: Mystery

233F: Child Musician Automatons Mystery

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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.

221A: “Solve this picture-mystery” collection of books

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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!

220A: The Mystery of the Missing Diamonds

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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.

215E: 2 cousins looking for lost gold mine

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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.

211C: YA mystery series (Solved)

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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!

204A: Late 1950’s: kids solve mystery of where to find what is hidden/buried in the old house/building

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I don’t remember really any more than this; once again, the kids were stumped because the map they found had directed them to find what was buried (in the old house/building) in a spot related to a fireplace or chimney in the house; but they couldn’t find what was buried, until they figured out that since the map was drawn, the old house/building had either some of the fireplaces walled off OR some of the chimneys removed (or some interior walls added or removed). Only then were they able to find the right spot to “dig”, to find what was hidden/buried in the house/building.

This book/story was read to my class in the late ’50’s in 4th, or 5th grade.

202C: Haunted house cobbler trap doors girls

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I found the book in question in the children’s fiction shelves of an army post library in the Panama Canal Zone in 1964 or 1965.
The story centered around two girls who explored an old abandoned house in their neighborhood. The house was supposedly haunted; from time to time the “tap-tap-tap” sound of a cobbler’s hammer repairing shoes could be heard.
Eventually, a boy they know decides to enter the house too, but they decide to avoid him and are able to do so by using the numerous trap doors in the house to move around undetected.