Carolyn Wells’ mysteries are…not very good, in general. The solutions to the mysteries feel like cop-outs. Her detectives and their weird child assistants are entertaining, but because she only ever brings them in for about the last third of the book, they feel like intruders. She’s excessively fond of secret passages, but rarely gets any fun out of them. The characters are inconsistent and usually unappealing, too. Read the rest of this entry ?
I’m pretty sure I’ve never come across one better than Shirley Temple and the Screaming Specter.
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So, I guess it’s pretty obvious that I’ve been on a Carolyn Wells kick lately. Having run out of Patty books for the moment, I’ve been reading a few of her mystery novels, like Raspberry Jam and The Curved Blades.
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In The Mystery at the Gatehouse, Louise and Jean help investigate the disappearance of Mr. Warrington, a wealthy businessman who lives near Starhurst and is being investigated by the government for reasons that are never fully explained.
We next meet Jean and Louise Dana two books later, in In the Shadow of the Tower, an evocative title that has very little to do with the story.
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So, The Dana Girls books are nothing special, really, but they are kind of interesting. Apparently they were meant to be a sort of cross between Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.
On the Hardy Boys side:
They’re siblings, and one has dark hair and the other has light hair.
On the Nancy Drew side:
They’re girls
Hmmm. That seems to be about it. The fact that they’re amateur detectives could count towards either side, and the fact that they’re in school and actually, you know, go to class sometimes couldn’t count towards either.
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I’m starting a ‘stupid leaps of logic’ category for books like this one: Ashton-Kirk, Investigator, by John T. McIntyre. It gets points for the fun illustrations, though. Read the rest of this entry ?
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