Category Archives: Unsolved

376Z: Help me find this YA book I loved

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From what I can remember of the book it took place in a village in the woods. In a time where there was no technology. The main character was a young adult girl. People were getting murdered in their homes during the night by something supernatural they assumed. At one point there is a romance with the main character and this boy out in the woods somewhere. From what I remember, it was a fairly gory book. I’m still trying to piece together my memories of it so if I think of something else, I will send it to you all.

376Y: The whodunit on the estate

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I have been trying to remember the name of a book I likely read in the early 1990s but could have been published much earlier than that. Every time I describe it to someone they guess it’s The Westing Game, but it is not.
A girl is invited to her aunt’s house for a visit. The aunt is married to a prominent and rich man (possibly a journalist? He is someone the girl is aware of and admires) who is throwing a party at his estate for a large number of famous friends. Once the guests are assembled it’s revealed via clues that the man has knowledge of something unsavory from each of their pasts (including his wife’s) and is blackmailing them.
That night the man is murdered and the book becomes an Agatha Christie style whodunit, knowing that the murderer must be one of the people in the house. The girl is able to learn about all of the guests and eventually solves the murder – the killer is a loyal housekeeper who doesn’t want the aunt’s secret to get out.
My son is now approaching the age I was when I read the book (probably 10 or 11?) and I’d love to find it for him since he enjoys mysteries but I cannot for the life of me remember the title, nor track it down with any kind of “books similar to the Westing Game” style searches.

376W: Vampire Tosca

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I’m looking for a vampire novel published between 1970-1989.
The plot revolves around a vampire who runs some kind of sleep disorder/research clinic on a college campus and uses that to cover for feeding (not enough to damage the subject). There is a detective, I think named Tosca, after the opera, who figures it out and confronts the vampire, who is a good guy. They maybe join forces to combat another vampire?  There is a sequel, where the main character has moved to the southwest. Help, please!

376V: Book full of music

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I have neither the title nor publisher, but expect the copyright was 83 or 84.
The book had titles, lists of composers and performers, lyrics, melodies, bass lines, accompaniment voices, and chord specifications (such as chords suspended with their fourth, dominant seventh chords, and polychords such as F/C).
The table of contents included the following:Elton John: Empty Garden/Hey Hey Johnny, I Guess That I Why They Call Itthe Blues,  Sad Songs Say So MuchHall and Oats: Man EaterDuran Duran: The Reflex, maybe New Moon on MondayCyndie Lauper: Time After TimeThe Police: Every Breath You TakeUnknown: You Don’t Bring Me FlowersSondheim?: Send in the Clowns
There were on the order of 25 songs in the book.
Note that this book came out and was bought along with Rush Complete which has a 1983 copyright probably by my Mother, Marjorie Belle Miller-Harris, in 1983 or 1984 from Jack’s House of Music in Sacramento, Ca, a business which has since gone out of business.https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/rush-complete-volume-1/9642330/vintage/?vid=728149246&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_everything_else_customer_acquisition&utm_adgroup=&utm_term=&utm_content=593719077582&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsoe5BhDiARIsAOXVoUsx7_YXGNRFwPgXfS9MSFJODtq7VudDQyXeuSa4GHAt9WRrfWYeq5waAhF5EALw_wcB

376U: Seeking a YA book written before 1978

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I’m so hoping you can help me.
My friend would love to find this beloved book.  She read it in 1978 while living in a kibbutz in Israel, and believes it may be  a book by either a U.S. or English/UK author. She believes this because there were women from the UK who brought books to Israel for the children/young people in the kibbutz to enjoy.

The plot is as follows:  a college-aged girl becomes ill and is hospitalized for a long time.  A hospital employee (might be a doctor, nurse, orderly, or someone else) tries to cheer up the hospitalized patients.  It then turns out that this person is stealing jewelry from the patients.  
Further details include the college student describing a man who cat-calls her, as a “wolf,” and the girl likes horses.

376R: Looking for a book based on the Affair of the Necklace

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Here are things I remember about the book I’m trying to locate:

  1. The title may have something about killing the husband. If not the title, around the first paragraph, the narrator talks about how she murdered her divorced husband’s new wife.
  2. The book is a modern take on the story of the Affair of the Necklace. The wife in the story is a big fan of Marie Antoinette and the story of the necklace.
  3. The wife was a waitress, then became the mistress, and then the wife of an older wealthy man. They live in some rich enclave like the Hamptons.
  4. The wife is a big contributor to an art gallery. Her husband thinks it’s stupid to make such big donations and threatens not to make good on their most recent promise.
  5. The husband has had a heart attack and is not allowed to be too active.
  6. The first wife’s friend introduces her to a French woman who’s staying with a friend but doesn’t know anyone in the neighborhood.
  7. As a kindness to her friend, the first wife invites the French women (“Frenchie”) over for lunch and she and the husband discover a mutual fondness for backgammon.
  8. The wife’s friend warns her to keep an eye on her husband, but she’s convinced he couldn’t fool around if he wanted to.
  9. Of course, the wife hears a noise in the pool house, and catches her hubby dying after having sex with Frenchie.
  10. The will is read, and the wife is essentially written out of the will. Meanwhile, Frenchie is left everything.
  11. Time passes, the wife loses her home and eventually runs out of money, and has to take a job selling carpet. Her rich friends go on with their rich friends and many befriend Frenchie who is throwing money around to social climb her way into society.
  12. The wife tries to set up an auction where she will have a friend anonymously bid on a necklace like Marie Antoinette’s that she knows Frenchie covets – to raise the price. But Frenchie doesn’t take the bait, and the wife’s friend is stuck with the necklace that the wife will have to buy from him.
  13. The wife – as a last ditch effort – spends the last of her $ to throw a soirée only to find out that Frenchie has scheduled one for the same date and time. When no one shows up at her party, the wife sneaks into Frenchie’s party and pays a waiter to spill the dessert all over Frenchie’s vintage designer dress. The French lady just laughs it off.
  14. The wife finds out from a friend who lives in France that French was married and probably drugged and killed her husband who was the wife’s French friend’s son. The friend shows her some sleeping pills that she thinks were used.
  15. When she returns to the US, the wife runs into a woman who could be the twin of the French woman. She convinces her to pretend to be the French woman and sign a document giving back everything she inherited back to the wife. The wife is going to drug the French woman and push her off the balcony.
  16. The plan works, but it looks like suicide; the French woman leaves info about how she had cancer.
  17. The wife gets everything back, pays the lookalike, who is a little ominous about the info she knows and what she could do w/it.

That’s the book.

Thanks for all your help.

376P: Potion makes you beautiful outside, ugly inside

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I would like to find a children’s picture book checked out from library in the early 90’s (most likely published then but possibly in 80’s), about a woman who was ugly/plain and wanted to be beautiful so the prince would marry her.  A little old man with a raisin looking face peddled her a potion but told her only to take it sparingly and it would make her pretty.  She did and then got vain and took it all, and became beautiful but ugly on the inside.  She was mean to the raisin face man and I think he turned out to be the prince under a curse and she didn’t end up with him after all.   Was a colorful picture book. 
Not the book titled Sleeping Ugly.  

376O: The Friendly Wolf (Short Story)

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The children’s short story The Dissatisfied Little Lamb by Catherine Jones, perhaps under her maiden name Catherine Hallman, published in a magazine sometime between 1940-80, about a lamb who leaves the farm to go exploring and finds a dog or wolf who is actually friendly and brings him home and he then protects the flock from a predatory wolf or other animal. Probably a magazine published in Georgia or SC.

376L: Spooky 90s picture book w/ Ichabod Crane vibes

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My younger brother and I used to regularly borrow this spooky picture book in early-mid 90s (could also be from the 80s). I remember rich illustrations and a main character with an Ichabod Crane nervousness about him. Can’t remember any of the plot except that at the climax of the book he is in a dark church and he believes there are ghosts all around. My brother’s memory is that the main character was an organist/pianist and that another character dresses up as a ghost and chases him off. I don’t *think* this is a version of Sleepy Hollow. But given how vague my memory is, anything is possible. Even if it is, I would love to figure out which version it is specifically. My brother and I have been trying to figure this out for years.