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By Lindsey, September 13, 2012

Three Times Lucky
by Sheila Turnage

This book for ages 10 and up was brought to my attention by my boss with the claim that she thought it was a Newbery contender (again, we are rarely able to predict or agree with past winners.)  However, her claim wasn’t too far-fetched as this book is reminiscent of recent Newberry winners.

Like 2012’s Dead End in Norvelt (Gantos, 2011) this book features a small town full of eccentric characters and a murder mystery.  Like 2007’s Higher Power of Lucky (Patron, 2006) this book’s main character, Mo, is a “plucky orphan.” There is a whole genre of “plucky orphan” literature.  First thing you learn in Children’s Literature class is that most children’s authors get rid of the parents. It looks like an amended genre is emerging: “plucky orphan with loving adopted parent(s)”.  This is the case with the heroines in both Three Times Lucky and Higher Power of Lucky.

In Three Times Lucky, Moses “Mo” LoBeau’s parents, The Colonel and Miss Lana, find it easier to live together separately (think Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton) in their small, present-day, North Carolina town. While it is clear they love each other and Mo a great deal, Mo still sends letters-in-a-bottle to her biological “Upstream Mother.” Mo has a comfortable and interesting life; however, her life becomes a lot more interesting when the town’s resident grump turns up dead and she and her best pal decide they will get to the bottom of it.

Three Times Lucky is a witty, quirky book that is fun to read without the mystery, but those who need the mystery will appreciate it as well. This is Turnage’s first fiction book for children and she clearly has a gift for colorful colloquialisms, intriguing characters, and teasing a mystery along at a perfect pace for children. While, I’m still pulling for R.J. Palacio’s Wonder to take top Newbery prize, I admit that when I had to wrap up my lunch break with 20 pages to spare, I did finish this book while sitting at the Children’s Reference Desk, something I only do in emergency situations.

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By Jenny, December 8, 2011

I Am Half Sick of Shadows
by Alan Bradley

Alan Bradley’s fourth mystery finds 12-year-old, motherless, nosy chemistry genius Flavia de Luce, stuck at home during the Christmas season in bleak post war England. Her older sisters Feely and Daffy continue to torment her and she spends her time sequestered in her chemistry lab concocting a sticky trap for Father Christmas among the chimney pots of Buckshaw, the decaying family manor.

To bring in badly needed income, Flavia’s father contracts with a film company to make a movie at Buckshaw. The whole village of Bishop’s Lacey is atwitter at the arrival of glamorous Phyllis Wyvern and her co–star Desmond Duncan. They agree to give a Christmas Eve performance of scenes from Romeo and Juliet to benefit the roof fund of the local church. On the night of the performance, village guests and the entire film crew end up snowed in at Buckshaw.

While all are peacefully slumbering among the many nooks and crannies of the big old house, Flavia discovers Phyllis Wyvern dead in her room, oddly dressed with a length of film tied gaily around her neck. Of course precocious Flavia can’t follow orders to stay away from the murder scene and proceeds with her own investigation. Danger ensues.

Who killed the movie star is not as important as 12 year old Flavia’s maturing relationship with her sisters and a growing realization that she is very much like the mother she never knew. A bit of accidental luck brings hope that things will be looking up for the De Luce’s of Buckshaw in the New Year and that Flavia has many more mysteries to solve in the future.

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By Crystal, August 23, 2011

Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead
by Sara Gran

Make no mistake; Sara Gran’s new novel is not a cozy mystery, nor your standard detective novel.  Gran has written a genre-bending tale so real and gritty and mystical,  she’s gonna fold a new wrinkle in your brain.  You’ll love and despise lead character Claire DeWitt, as you cheer her on to solve the crime.  Gran has used Post-Katrina New Orleans as time and place for her mystery, weaving in the devastation, corruption, and heartbreak of its people.  If you’re not already familiar with Sara Gran, get to reading!  I’m glad to know that Claire DeWitt is just the first in a series, and you will be too.

-crystal

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By Jenny, June 10, 2010

Maisie Dobbs
by Jacqueline Winspear

My favorite mysteries feature women detectives who rely on pure intellect to solve their cases. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Dorothy L. Sayers Harriet Vane come to mind. Add to this list Maisie Dobbs, nurse, veteran of the First World War, Cambridge educated, psychologist and private detective. This series by Jacqueline Winspear begins with Maisie Dobbs and continues with the seventh volume, Mapping of Love and Death, due out in March 2010.

Begin with this first volume, for background on how a bright working class girl developed into the remarkable Maisie. Starting out as a servant after the death of her mother, she is taken under the wing of Lady Rowan, the vivacious and progressive aristocrat who recognizes Maisie’s talent and sees she receives a first rate education after intense tutoring by her friend psychologist Maurice Blanche. During WW I Maisie finds herself a nurse in a field hospital in France where she treats victims of mustard gas and other horrific injuries before she and her fiancé, surgeon Simon Lynch are both injured themselves.

This war experience provides the foundation for all of Maisie’s work as a private detective, giving her compassion and understanding as she navigates the harsh realities of post war England when the tremendous death toll of the war left many damaged souls as well as social and economic devastation. Somehow, the conclusions she reaches while solving her cases move Maisie and her clients a little closer to healing the wounds of war. For mystery lovers who relish plowing through multiple volumes at once, this character driven series is a prize.

- Phyllis

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By Amanda, May 29, 2010

The Spellmans Strike Again
By Lisa Lutz

Ok, let me ask you something.  When was the last time you started to read a book on the same day you checked it out from the library?  Maybe you’re a better library patron than I am, starting each book responsibly, as soon as you get it home.  But me?  I have what some would call a massive To-Be-Read (from here on known as TBR) pile, and what usually happens is that the books I get from the library go on top (because they have to go back before the ones I bought, which I own in perpetuity) and hopefully I get to them before my third renewal runs out (yes, you get three!  Woohoo!). 

Except with this book.

On the Friday I checked this out (I remember it was a Friday because I had to watch Friday Night Lights before I could read), I went home, had supper, watched TV, and then started it.  Being the fourth book and final (gasp) book in this series, I couldn’t wait to see what happened to my beloved Spellmans. 

If you’ve never met the Spellmans, let me bring you up to speed.  A family of PIs, the five members (Dad, Mom, David, Izzy, Rae - in birth order) seem to spend more time investigating each other than solving local mysteries.  Lutz has a charmingly eccentric writing style that includes the use of humorous footnotes.  Here are the books you need to read sooner than later:

Without giving too much away, this last entry finds Izzy struggling to deal with her family while at the same time trying to maintain the family business.  Her friend Len is pretending to be a butler, Henry is pretending he likes her again, and good old Morty is pretending to like the great state of Florida.

Lutz hasn’t said definitively that she’ll never write another Spellman book, but if she does, I’m going to have to wait a VERY VERY long time for it (sigh).  And that makes me sad. 

What am I gonna do without my annual Spellman fix? Oh yeah, my massive TBR pile. That’ll work.

Amanda

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By Bryan, May 17, 2010

Can’t get enough of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy? Can’t wait for the third book to come out in the U.S.? Check out these Stieg Larsson read-a-likes…

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By Pam, April 16, 2010

The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag
by Alan Bradley

I wish I were finding this book (and its predecessor, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie) twelve years from now. I love discovering a worthy series and then greedily reading all the titles one after the other, in order, of course! More’s the pity when you begin a series early on and have to wait a year between titles.

This second in the Flavia de Luce series is every bit as enticing as the first (read the staff review by Phyllis). We’ve come to adore our heroine Flavia, an 11-year-old chemistry savant with a penchant for poison and an encyclopedic memory for English literature and history. I’ve read criticism that the character is unbelievable in that regard, but my friend Ariel, a retired librarian with legendary recall, could easily have been Flavia in another life. And hey, it’s just a story, so lighten up!

This time around, Flavia unravels two mysterious deaths in her village of Bishop’s Lacey–one in the present (well, in the 1950s present) and one in the past. Along the way, we meet Rupert the creepy but talented puppeteer, the aged singing and piano playing Puddock sisters, overbearing Aunt Felicity from London, and Dieter, an Anglophile POW from Hitler’s Luftwaffe.  And there are roles for our favorites from Sweetness, as well: Dogger the shellshocked gardener/butler; Mad Meg the town nutter; and, of course, Flavia’s mean sisters Feely and Daffy. By the end of the book, every human being in Bishop’s Lacey is suspect, including the sainted vicar, and it’s great fun to ponder along with Flavia even if you can’t do the chemistry.

My sole criticism is that the publisher cheaped out on the book’s manufacture. The cover illustration and title of Sweetness is charmingly printed directly on the book’s cover board, with no dust jacket, giving it an old-fashioned look and feel. Random House didn’t do a thing in the world with Weed’s binding, opting instead for a dust jacket design. So they’ve already spoiled the design of what deserves to be a very a collectible set. –Pam