Classic Mysteries

A Gift for Young Readers: "The Westing Game"

I am asked frequently to recommend a book that may encourage young readers to try reading the kind of traditional mysteries we enjoy so much.

My favorite such mystery apparently is back in print. "The Westing Game," by Ellen Raskin, works on many levels as an introduction to complex, fairly-clued, puzzle-type mysteries. The book won the Newbery Medal for children's literature in 1979, and it is generally recommended for readers over the age of 9, though adults will enjoy it as well.

I wrote a fairly lengthy blog post nearly two years ago, laying out the story, and I invite you to visit that post for a more complete review and plot rundown. Basically, it's about a group of sixteen people, including four children, who are called to a mysterious old house to hear the reading of the last will of multi-millionaire Samuel Westing. According to that will, those sixteen are invited to follow a trail of clues in a kind of difficult and sometimes dangerous game to determine who killed Westing - for, again according to that will, he did not die a natural death. The one who succeeds will inherit the bulk of Westing's $200 million estate.

How they react, what each of them does - and how they find and handle the clues all of which are fairly given to the reader, all these things should fascinate the new mystery reader. Only one person in the book will follow the clues and interpret them correctly to reach the surprising conclusion. And - when all is revealed - the reader can look back at the clues and see how cleverly he or she was misdirected by the author. If you are trying to explain to a new mystery reader why, as experienced readers, we so love this kind of mystery puzzle- this book should make it very clear.

I am delighted to see that the book is available again in paperback as well as in electronic formats. I think it makes a great stocking stuffer for any young readers on your gift list - and I hope that they will become as fascinated as we are with this kind of mystery.

Getting Kids Hooked on Mysteries

Because I am married to a school librarian, I am very much aware of the need to get children interested in reading - to give them the idea that reading is something they do not just because they have to, but because they want to. It is also no secret that a lot of children love mysteries of all sorts.

So it's worth repeating from time to time, as I try to do here, that there are a great many mysteries that are appropriate for kids and are also a great deal of fun to read. I mention it again today because a reader named Jay Smith sent me a link today to a blog post on "The 9 Best Mystery Books for Kids." I haven't read some of them, but agree - wholeheartedly - with the number one choice: Ellen Raskin's brilliant, "The Westing Game" - a book which I'd recommend for adults as well as children.

I wrote about "The Westing Game" here last year, as part of my contribution to the Children's Classics Mystery Challenge organized at the 5 Minutes for Books blog. It's perfect for showing young readers the joys of the traditional mystery - where they are given all the clues, yet are very likely to find themselves led astray by clever red herrings. I'm sure most of my readers will have ideas of their own (and no, I haven't forgotten the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew or Encyclopedia Brown), and I invite you to leave suggestions in the comments.

Trailer-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?

OK, not exactly. But there is a new trailer out (from YouTube via Mashable) for the seventh (and next-to-last) Harry Potter movie, based on the first half of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and there is a great deal of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in this one. Not surprising, given the events that make up the plot of this book.

Oh - and, yes, Harry Potter belongs on this website. Taken in their entirety, the seven Harry Potter novels make up a brilliant mystery, complete with clues carefully planted in all the books leading up to the conclusion. There's a lot of warfare and action in "Deathly Hallows"; I hope the movie won't get so carried away with the action that it leaves out any of the critical and sometimes even heartbreaking plot twists and turns. The Harry Potter novels are classics - classic mysteries, really.

One word of advice: if you're new to the Potter saga, you should read the books in order FROM THE BEGINNING - or at least watch the movies in order FROM THE BEGINNING, or the later books/movies may make little sense to you. I find them tremendously entertaining.

For Children: Something Old, Something New...

For the past six months, we have been participating in the Children's Classics Mystery Challenge, a marvelous idea which was initiated and run by Jennifer and Carrie and their friends at the excellent 5 Minutes for Books blog.

In looking back at the books reviewed here as part of that challenge, I find that it was very much like the old rhyme about weddings, in that we offered "something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue."

Something old: my favorite of all the books I read for this challenge would still have to be "The Westing Game," by Ellen Raskin, the winner of the 1979 Newbery Medal for excellence in children's literature. It has gone out of print - and I cry "SHAME" on the publishers, although there seems to be a fair number of used copies available. "The Westing Game" is a book that adults can enjoy every bit as much as the 9-to-12-year-old audience. Of the children's mysteries I read, it is the closest to a traditional mystery for adults, with fair and unbelievably clever clues. I can't imagine why a young reader wouldn't be hooked on mysteries by a book like this.

Something new: for the past two months, I've been talking about this year's award winners, "The Hanging Hill," by Chris Grabenstein, which won Malice Domestic's Agatha Award for the best juvenile mystery, and "Closed for the Season," by Mary Downing Hahn, which walked off with the best juvenile Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America. It's good to know that exciting new mysteries for children (and adults) are still being written today, and these books should encourage and entertain kids who may be new to mysteries.

Something borrowed: well, a lot of the books I read for this challenge were borrowed from, and recommended by, my wife, who is a school librarian in a K-to-8 school, and those grades make up a pretty good target range for young readers who would enjoy these books. Her advice, as always, has proven to be invaluable.

Something blue: OK, I couldn't resist, as I really had two that fit, both pretty new: "The Other Side of Blue," by Valerie O. Patterson is a well-written, rather haunting book that combines a mystery with a sort of coming-of-age novel. There's a lot here for teen-agers to like. Also, of course, there was "Chasing Vermeer," by Blue Balliett, a fine art-theft story with a lot of unusual twists and wrinkles.

It has been a fun ride. My thanks again to the folks at 5 Minutes for Books, who came up with this idea and who let me be a part of it. Thanks also to all the other bloggers who participated in the challenge and came up with their own lists of "must-read" mysteries for children.

The Children's Mystery Challenge: June

For our final entry in the Children's Classics Mystery Challenge series, I want to recommend another winner of a major award - the winner of this year's coveted Edgar for "Best Juvenile," awarded by the Mystery Writers of America. It's "Closed for the Season," by Mary Downing Hahn, a book intended for roughly fourth through seventh grades (I think it would probably do well among older children too).

"Closed for the Season" stars a thirteen-year-old boy, Logan Forbes, who has just moved with his family into a fairly creepy old house in a new town. Logan meets the almost-twelve-year-old boy next door, Arthur Jenkins, a strange - all right, downright weird boy. Arthur tells Logan that the woman who used to live in the Forbes's new house was murdered, and the killer has never been caught. The victim also was accused of embezzling funds from the Magic Forest amusement park where she was the bookkeeper. Arthur believes that she was no embezzler, and he persuades Logan to help him try to find out what really happened by solving the murder.

The boys explore the Magic Forest - now an abandoned and dangerous place - and uncover a variety of clues, both in Logan's house and in the old park. There's a great deal more: Logan runs afoul of other schoolchildren (who dislike Arthur because, you know, he's weird). The boys do some trespassing, steal some library materials, run afoul of a dangerous convict, get involved with a reporter who may not be all she seems to be, and uncover the truth about the embezzlement and the murder. The book ends in a terrifying return to the abandoned, overgrown and decaying Magic Forest amusement park in the middle of the night - where the murderer is waiting for them.

Hahn keeps things moving, while also providing some really good, frightening atmospherics. The back of the hardcover edition carries this quote, which I think is pretty typical:

If the Magic Forest was scary in the daylight, it was truly terrifying in the dark. All around us kudzu lifted and fell in the breeze, sighing as if it were a living, breathing creature, a shape changer. Now it was a monster, now an ogre, now a long-armed witch, always menacing, never benign, never still. Shadows shifted, darkened, lightened, grew, shrank. Leaves murmured like ghosts, whispering to each other of death and decay.

It's a fine thriller, with legitimate clues and some pretty clever detective work on the part of Logan and Arthur. It's also a great story about friendship and learning to understand that your parents don't always get it right. If you're looking for a book that could convince those almost-teen-aged boys to get involved with mysteries and reading, this is a really good book, richly deserving its Edgar.

The Children's Mystery Challenge: May

This is a good time to be a child interested in mysteries. Malice Domestic, the organization of traditional mystery lovers, has just announced their Agatha Awards, including the award for Best Children's/Young Adult Mystery.

There were five nominees this year, and I want to give you a brief taste of each. I have read three of the five so far, including the Agatha winner, and I think that each of these books could, should and would get a child excited about mysteries.

Let's start with this year's winner: Chris Grabenstein's "The Hanging Hill." Intended for readers around the 5th-6th grade level (the hero is an eleven-year-old boy), "The Hanging Hill" has supernatural elements as well as traditional mystery sleuthing. Eleven-year-old Zack Jennings, who can see ghosts, arrives at the Hanging Hill Playhouse with his stepmother and dog. His mother has written a play which will be produced at the theater. But the presence of a number of ominous and malevolent ghosts suggests that there's something very wrong with the events going on at the playhouse. The theater director appears to be an evil necromancer - and he appears to be getting ready for a different kind of production that could imperil Zack and the other kids in the play. The supernatural elements are integral to the book - but so are the clues that help Zack determine what's really going on, and what he can do about it. There's a lot of humor - some of it clearly aimed at the intended age group - and it's an excellent story.

For younger children, about 3rd-grade level, I'd recommend another nominee, "The Case of the Poisoned Pig," by Lewis B. Montgomery. The book is the second in a series featuring two school kids, Milo and Jazz, who are trying to learn to be detectives. In this one, they face the problem of Jazz's new pet piglet: somebody appears to be poisoning the pig. Who would do such a thing? With help from their pen-pal instructor, private eye Dash Marlowe, the two young detectives track down the poisoner. The story is studded with clues about what's really happening, and young readers will enjoy puzzling over the clues, reading the messages from Dash Marlowe and getting advice on some of the things detectives look for when solving crimes. It's a good, funny introduction to mysteries for younger readers.

I think that a more mature teen-aged audience will love the book which I admit turned out to be my own favorite among the award nominees that I've read: Valerie O. Patterson's "The Other Side of Blue." The heroine is a 15-year-old girl, named Cyan, the name of a shade of blue. Cyan returns to the island of Curacao one year after the death of her father, who apparently drowned in a boating accident. Cyan isn't so sure it was an accident. She suspects that her mother may have been at least partly responsible. What about the shattered champagne glasses found on board the boat after the accident? As a gulf grows between daughter and mother, Cyan finds she must also play hostess to a younger girl who may soon become her stepsister. She must also deal with some of the boys who live on the island. Part coming-of-age novel, part classic mystery, the book is marvelous, as Cyan struggles to come to terms with her father's death - and with her mother and stepsister-to-be as well. She will be surprised by what she learns, as she explores the overall symbolism within the color blue.

The other two Agatha nominees were books I haven't had a chance to read yet. John C. Ford's "The Morgue and Me" is described by the author as a "modern take on the classic detective genre." School Library Journal pegs it for 7th-grade and up, with a teen-aged boy named Christopher as the hero. He was looking for a summer job after graduating high school - and wound up with a job at the morgue - where he discovers a murder cover-up. Bribery and kidnappings are involved as well, as Christopher and his reporter friend Tina work to solve the mystery, which - according to the author's blurb - involves plenty of plot twists and red herrings.

The last Agatha nominee is "The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline ," by Nancy Springer, and it's the latest adventure involving Enola Holmes, the much younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. Back in January, I recommended this series as an excellent way to introduce fourth-to-eighth graders to traditional mysteries. The new book apparently involves the kidnapping of her landlady. Enola is led to Florence Nightingale - but what could the latter have to do with a spy network as well as a kidnapping? I'm looking forward to this one too.

There you have it. Five nominees (and one winner). Five more opportunities to introduce young readers to the joys of traditional mysteries.

The Children's Mystery Challenge: "The Bodies in the Bessledorf Hotel"

Consider the circumstances: you are an eleven-year-old boy, with younger and older siblings. You live in a hotel, where your father is the manager. One day, the hotel maid runs downstairs into the office to announce she has just found the dead body of a guest in one of the rooms. You and your father go upstairs to the room and find - nothing. The body and the guest have disappeared.

And that's just the beginning. It happens again...and the owner of the hotel threatens to fire your Dad if the disappearing bodies damage the hotel's business...

Welcome to "The Bodies in the Bessledorf Hotel," a 1986 novel by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and our entry for April in the Children's Mystery Challenge. On the second Tuesday of each month, now through June, we're looking at some mysteries which can introduce younger readers to the kind of mysteries we adults enjoy so much. In the case of this blog, obviously, that would include the kind of mysteries we think of as classic mysteries, where readers are given clues which they can piece together (along with the central characters in the story) to find the one true solution to the mystery.

That's what happens in this book - which, by the way, has been republished now with the title "Bernie Magruder and the Disappearing Bodies." Bernie Magruder is the eleven-year-old hero of the book, and most of the action is seen through his eyes. With the help of his siblings and a couple of his good friends, it's up to Bernie to figure out what's really going on at the Bessledorf Hotel - and to unmask (and capture) the villain of the piece...even if he WOULD rather be concentrating on getting his skateboarding exploits into the Guinness Book of World Records.

It's a legitimate, well-plotted mystery, nicely executed, with valid and clever clues along the way. It's a good enough mystery that it was nominated for a 1987 Edgar Award in the Juvenile category. It's intended for readers in the 9-12 age group, although I think it certainly can be enjoyed by older readers as well. I think it's a great introduction to this kind of mystery story.

Agatha Nominees

Malice Domestic, the organization behind the annual Agatha Awards, has announced this year's Agatha nominees. The winners will be announced at the Malice Domestic convention in Arlington, VA, at the end of April. I plan to be there this year - it sounds like a great weekend to celebrate the traditional mystery epitomized by Agatha Christie's works. Check it out. Anyway, here are the nominees:

Best Novel

 

Swan for the Money, Donna Andrews, St. Martin’s Minotaur

Bookplate Special, Lorna Barrett, Berkley Prime Crime

Royal Flush, Rhys Bowen, Berkley Prime Crime

A Brutal Telling, Louise Penny, Minotaur Books

Air Time, Hank Phillippi Ryan, MIRA

 

Best First Novel

 

For Better For Murder, Lisa Bork, Midnight Ink

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley, Delacorte Press

Posed for Murder, Meredith Cole, St. Martin’s Minotaur

The Cold Light of Mourning, Elizabeth Duncan, St. Martin’s Press

In the Shadow of Gotham, Stefanie Pintoff, Minotaur Books

 

Best Nonfiction

 

Duchess of Death, Richard Hack, Phoenix Books

Talking About Detective Fiction, P.D. James, Knopf

Blood on the Stage, 1925 – 1950, Amnon Kabatchnik, Scarecrow Press

Dame Agatha’s Shorts, Elena Santangelo, Bella Rosa Books

The Talented Miss Highsmith, Joan Schenkar, St. Martin’s Press

 

Best Short Story

 

“Femme Sole,” Dana Cameron, Boston Noir, Akashic Books

“Handbaskets, Drawers and Killer Cold,” Kaye George, Crooked

“The Worst Noel,” Barb Goffman, The Gift of Murder, Wolfmont Press

“On the House,” Hank Phillippi Ryan, Quarry, Level Best Books

“Death Will Trim Your Tree,” Elizabeth Zelvin, The Gift of Murder, Wolfmont Press

 

Best Children’s/Young Adult Novel

 

The Morgue and Me, John C. Ford, Viking Juvenile

The Hanging Hill, Chris Grabenstein, Random House

The Case of the Poisoned Pig, Lewis B. Montgomery, Kane Press

The Other Side of Blue, Valerie O. Patterson, Clarion Books

The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline, Nancy Springer, Philomel

Children's Mystery Challenge: "The Westing Game"

On the second Tuesday of each month, now through June, we are joining with other blogs to write about great mystery books aimed at kids. The challenge is to get them interested in reading the kind of mysteries we enjoy.

My choice this month is "The Westing Game," by Ellen Raskin, which is an absolutely first-rate puzzle-style mystery, very much in the classic tradition. It's a book written for kids, to be sure - in fact, it won the 1979 Newbery Medal for children's lit, the top honor in the field. But I can assure any adult reading this: "The Westing Game" is every bit as enjoyable and challenging to adults as it is to younger readers.

Sixteen people (including four children) are invited to an old mansion to hear a lawyer read the last will and testament of Samuel Westing, who has been found dead in that house. What they hear is a very strange offer: if they will agree to follow the instructions in the will, they will be divided into two-person teams to play a sort of game. Each twosome will be given $10,000 to start and a few written clues. Clues? Yes - but to what? An open question - but, according to Westing's will, he says that he did not die a natural death - and he wants the sixteen heirs to solve the puzzle and find the person - one of the sixteen - responsible for his death. The person who solves the problem will receive the bulk of his $200 million fortune.

Will they play along? What is the meaning of the peculiar clues - most of them only a single word? Before it is over, the sixteen heirs are going to have their whole lives changed, some quite radically, because of this unusual "game." There will be danger and adventure - and new relationships will be formed, too.

What makes the book work so well for me (I couldn't put it down for the last 80 pages or so) is the fact that it really is a classic puzzle mystery. There are a great many plot twists and turns, layer built on layer, but the reader is given every clue - yet, I suspect, will be unable to see where the book is heading until the final twists.It very much resembles the work of such great classic mystery writers as Ellery Queen, in that there are several "solutions" in succession, each new one supplanting what had seemed to be the correct solution. The use of a dying victim's message and the planting of open but cryptic clues were also favorites of Queen.

In other words, it plays the game so dear to those of us who love these puzzle mysteries, and plays it fairly and well. And if it brings that game to younger readers, letting them see the joys of these mysteries where the reader is given a fair chance to work out the solution, that's a wonderful thing. If I had children who had just read "The Westing Game," I'd challenge them - at the end of the book - to look back and see where they were given each piece of information which, correctly interpreted, would have led them to the right conclusion (just as it leads one - and only one - character in the book to the correct answer).

"The Westing Game" appears to be out of print at the moment, but there are a fair number of used book dealers who can get it quite easily, including several at the Amazon.com link above. My school librarian wife tells me it's recommended for age 9 and older - fine, as long as we clearly understand that "and older" means "right through adult." I can't recommend it highly enough, not only for children, but for any lover of this kind of mystery.

Sherlock's Little Sister

Here's another approach to Sherlock Holmes which is well worth the time of a child interested in mysteries. Most of us who have read the Holmes stories know that Sherlock has an older brother, Mycroft. We may not know, however, that he also has a much younger sister.

Welcome to the Enola Holmes books, written by Nancy Springer. This popular series began just a few years ago with the publication of "The Case of the Missing Marquess: An Enola Holmes Mystery." Enola - which is "alone" spelled backwards - was a late-in-life baby, more than 20 years younger than her brothers, whom she barely knows. Her father died when she was four years old.

On her 14th birthday, her 64-year-old mother disappears, without a word to anyone. It is some time before Enola will realize that her mother left a number of clues for her, including a couple of ciphers, for her to decode - clues that might help Enola find her mother. In the meantime, her brothers arrive and, tell her (rather patronizingly) that they will solve the mystery of their mother's disappearance. As for Enola, they intend to send her away to boarding school.

Not likely. Enola manages to escape and goes to London, determined to follow the clues and find her mother. Along the way, she becomes involved in solving another disappearance, the apparent kidnapping of the young Marquess of Basilwether. It is an investigation that will put her life in danger - and she must solve the mysteries without any help from her more famous brothers.

It is also a quite-fairly clued book. The ciphers - particularly the first two - are designed to let kids study them and quite probably solve them. And the other clues are given to them as they are given to Enola - just as they should be in a well-written and fairly clued mystery.

This is the first book in a series, written for fourth- to eighth-graders. Enola Holmes is a delight, as she becomes more and more self-sufficient over the course of the first novel (and, I presume, the later ones as well). Nancy Springer's view of the heavily male-dominated late Victorian age is pretty jaundiced, and Enola violates enough Victorian taboos in this book to make any nascent feminist happy - which is a good thing. By the end of the book, she will become a perditorian. What, you may ask, is that? You will have to read the book to find out. So far, Enola Holmes has appeared in five books, with a sixth due out this spring. My wife, a school librarian (who is having some trouble keeping enough copies on the shelf!) recommends these books heartily as a good way to get young readers, particularly girls, interested in mysteries.