As always, Turnage's tale is full of heart and perfect for reading on a front porch.
Folks from Tupelo Landing, North Carolina, lay on the colorful phrases thick as gum molasses in the wintertime, with character and personality as plentiful as okra at a Southern wake.
However, it's no wake that brings together the whole town in this second follow-up to Turnage's award-winning debut, Three Times Lucky (2012), it's the trial of Tupelo’s century. And sixth-grader Mo LeBeau and her detecting partner, Dale Earnhardt Johnson III, are once again at the center of it all. Turnage continues to delight with her mix of homespun humor, well-plotted mystery, and delicious characterization. At 342 pages, the novel is longer than its two predecessors, but readers probably won’t notice. Lavender, Dale's brother and Mo's unknowing intended (in just seven more years), is in mortal danger, and Dale and Lavender's no-good daddy, Macon, is on trial, so there’s more than enough to fill a book and keep the founding members of the Desperado Detective Agency occupied. The fun is in the telling, and Turnage's telling shows alacrity as well as aplomb. The author gracefully weaves a laundry list of characters with a plot that has a lot of moving pieces, and she does it with charm and humor, hitting the sweet spot for young readers searching for more-complex tales but not ready to leave the silly behind.
As always, Turnage's tale is full of heart and perfect for reading on a front porch. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-803-73961-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Kathy Dawson/Penguin
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Breathless action and engaging puzzles make this a page-turner.
In this follow-up to The Mystery of Locked Rooms (2024), young escape artists rashly accept a mysterious game designer’s offer to get a sneak peek at a challenging new set of escape rooms.
Worried by announcements of a new, high-tech fun house that might drive their employer, the Delta Game, out of business, middle schooler Sarah and her friends Hannah and West jump at the chance to give Mystery Mansion a try before it opens to the public. More’s at stake than they suspect, but Currie dispenses with the backstory in a perfunctory way at the end. Her real focus—and the chief appeal here—lies in the set of fiendishly clever escape rooms that she’s devised for the trio and the team dynamics that carry them through: Hannah is the reckless thrill seeker, West is the observant brainiac, and anxiety-prone Sarah has a knack for making correct choices. The story cranks up the suspense, and the Deltas call on all the courage and smarts they can muster, sweeping readers along as they work urgently against the clock to complete the course. Hannah is cued white, West is described as dark-haired, and narrator Sarah isn’t physically described.
Breathless action and engaging puzzles make this a page-turner. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9781464234941
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Sourcebooks Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
Delightful fun for budding mystery fans.
Only children, rejoice! A cozy mystery just for you! (People with siblings will probably enjoy it too.)
Debut novelist Cornett introduces the One and Onlys, a trio of mystery-solving only kids: Gloria Longshanks “Shanks” Hill, Alexander “Peephole” Calloway, and narrator Paul (alas, no nickname) Marconi. The trio has a knack for finding and solving low-level mysteries, but they come up against a true head-scratcher when the yard of a resident of their small town is covered in rubber ducks overnight. Working ahead of Officer Portnoy, who’s a little on the slow side, can Paul, Shanks, and Peephole solve the mystery? Cornett has a lot of fun with this adventure, dropping additional side mysteries, a subplot about small businesses, big corporations, and economics, and a town’s love of bratwurst into the mix. Most importantly, he plays fair with the clues throughout, allowing astute readers to potentially solve the case ahead of the trio. The tone and mystery are perfect for younger readers who want to test their detective skills but are put off by anything scary or gory. The pacing would serve well for chapter-by-chapter read-alouds. If there are any quibbles, it’s the lack of diversity of the cast, as it defaults white. Diversity exists in small towns, and this one is crying out for more. Hopefully a sequel will introduce additional faces.
Delightful fun for budding mystery fans. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-3003-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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