This book appears to be written by an ex-boyfriend and girlfriend who agree to write alternating chapters. The book includes their email conversations as they struggle over where the plot will go and rehash relationship mishaps. It is very funny. The mystery plot involves a brother and sister who live in a rural area. He grows pot illegally and she works as a barista….
Think I read this in the 90s. May have been translated from French (or another language?) I think the book starts in America in modern times - late 20th century. A person's friend/partner/significant other(?) dies or is killed. The person, who I think is male, goes to a city in Europe, possibly Paris, to find out more. During his investigating, he talks to various people, goes into buildings, etc. One of these people is a nurse who eventually gets her throat slit, and he either sees it happen or finds the body. ***spoilers coming*** Some time after this, he sees the nurse, alive, on the street, and no longer a nurse. He goes back to some of the buildings where he had talked to people, only to discover that they are completely empty abandoned buildings. . . an entire scenario had been set up that didn't actually exist. He realizes that everyone he has talked to and all the places he has been were in fact people playing characters and places that were only set up to trick him into not solving this murder. I really thought this book was called either Facade or Charade, but the books I've found online with those titles are not this book. . . so maybe it's a one word title.
Mid-1990s to mid-2000’s publication date, more likely 1998-2003. Mystery novel set in Luton, England. Protagonist is black cabdriver of West Indian/Caribbean origin. Unfortunately, I can’t recall the mystery he gets involved in. I liked the author’s portrayal of an overlooked airport town, the character and the look into his culture. Although I read a lot of British mysteries, this one’s setting was unusual and the mood of it has stayed with me. I have wondered if it was part of a series or a one-off.
I do not know the name of any of the books in the series, but I can describe at least one of the covers. Our library had 4 books but there may have been more. All of the books had a deep purple cover. One had a mansion or haunted house on top of a hill or cliff. For some reason murder mansion, Whispering Hill, sticks in my head. I believe there were 2 or 3 kids and one had an odd name. Definitely not the more prolific series, Three Investigators, Hardy Boys, etc. The books were hardcover and not very thick, 70-80 pages and meant for grades 3-6. I hope you can find the series I am looking for.
In the beginning of the book a boy (think it’s a boy, could be girl) is walking down the street when a newspaper or flyer wraps around his leg. He looks at it and reads the word veni in Latin (I come or I am coming) and smells wet ashes. Later in the book the figure/ghost is beckoning him to jump in a well (?) or off a cliff – he’s saved by someone, but that’s all I remember. Hope you can help.
Edit: The author of this post found the title of the book before I got around to posting their Stumper: The Figure in the Shadows!
Seeking 1970s YA mystery. Protagonist delivers newspapers and in a subscription sales contest. Has a genius inventor friend (including retractable staircase). Mysterious house with strange noises. Turns out to be a family of circus performers who buy a lot of newspaper subscriptions.
I read it in the 1970s, probably published then or perhaps in the late '60s. A young boy (maybe 10 or 11) and his older sister (young teenager?) from a noble family become embroiled in a mystery and they run around town (possibly Athens, but I think it was ancient Rome) hunting for clues. They wear togas. 🙂
I believe this book is for middle grade and from the 1970s or before. It is about a boy who spends the summer away from home, near the ocean or on an island. The first night there, he see someone using Morse code to spell out his name. Later, he learns it is another boy who wants to be friends. (They become friends.) There is some type of mystery to be solved and a man (maybe a relative?) tries to kill the boy at the end of the book. There are caves or some kind of natural phenomenon where at the right tide, the wind/water rushes through, sounding like ghosts moaning. When the man is after him, the boy has to face his fear and enter the caves to escape.
I am looking for a book that I had started many years ago as a tween but have since forgotten the title. I never finished it, but what I can remember was that it had a dark (possibly black) cover. In terms of plot I believe it had something to do with mysterious disappearances, where people where inexplicably called or lured into the sea and never seen again. I believe it was set in New England in a coastal town. It would have been a hardcover around the time of 2000-2005. I think there was something about a man and his father having gone into the ocean. Maybe a sea monster? I didn’t get far enough into the story to figure out why the people were disappearing. I believe it was a book for adults. I don’t think it was part of a series. The time period was modern. I don’t know if it was mystery or horror, as I never finished it. I think it might’ve been classified as mystery. I don’t think it was a young adult book and I believe it had a male author