Trix and the gang go visit Uncle Andrew Belden's farm in Happy Valley, Iowa. Poor Uncle Andrew has a real mystery on his hands: his sheep are disappearing. Good thing Trixie and the rest of the Bob-Whites are there to solve the mystery, since the police can't. They make some new friends, almost drown in a freak rainstorm, and of course figure out who is stealing the sheep. All in a day's work for Trixie!
I didn't read "The Marshland Mystery" much as a kid because my copy was bound incorrectly: it goes to page 92 or so, then skips ahead to 150, and then after about 20 pages goes back to 93, so I had to remember that when I read it and I'd usually get confused. A violin prodigy, Gaye, is staying with Honey and her family, and Trixie and Honey are gathering samples from nearby Martin's Marsh for their science teacher, since her's were accidentally broken (clumsy student, no mystery there). When Honey and Trixie go to the Marsh, they meet Miss Rachel, the last of the Martins, who is living in a charming little cottage. There honestly wasn't much of a mystery here, come to think of it. Little Gaye runs away and everyone's in a panic, looking for her, until they find her hiding in Miss Rachel's barn. Trixie does spend some time looking for hidden treasure, but it turns out to be hiding in plain sight. I guess that was the mystery?
Good old Uncle Andrew provides yet another place for the Bob-Whites to get into trouble: his hunting lodge in the Ozarks. When they get there Trixie reads about a reward in a magazine for specimens of a rare "ghost" fish. She's convinced she can find them in the nearby caves and drags her friends along to go spelunking. They discover a cave with lots of the fish, and Trixie almost drowns when she goes down a well and a sudden rainstorm comes up. After that Uncle Andrew is reluctant to let her out of his sight, but that of course doesn't stop Trixie.
In "The Mystery of the Blinking Eye" the Bob-Whites are in New York with Miss Trask, Mr. Wheeler, and some of their friends from Iowa. At the airport, Trixie helps a lost Mexican woman, who gives her a prophesy and a purse. The prophecy is very dire, talking about danger, guns, foolish girl (obviously the Mexican woman was the real deal) and other things. The rest of the Bob-Whites don't put much stock in it, but Trixie does. Everywhere they go, it seems like they're being followed by some shady men who keep trying to steal a little wooden figure Trixie bought at a junk shop. Turns out (of course) that the figure is used by a smuggling ring and actually contains a very valuable diamond. Gleeps!
The Bob-Whites go to Cobbett's Island, hoping to have *one* vacation where Trixie doesn't get them embroiled in a mystery (spoiler alert: she does). Their first night there there's a wicked storm and they spend the next few days helping out a neighbor who's hosting a fund raising party for the library. The neighbor boy (damn, what was his name? I'm drawing a blank) sails and teaches them a few things. I remember being bored to tears by this book as a kid, because of all the technical explanations about sailing. Even as an adult who is actually interested in sailing, I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. They find a treasure map in a book and follow it and find a thousand dollars hidden away and are luckily able to return it to its rightful owner.
Poor long-suffering Mr. Wheeler is stuck with the Bob-Whites again as he drags them along on a business trip to the Mississippi River area and actually gets them on a steamboat for a night. Trixie and Honey find an odd map in their hotel room and after that are followed by a shady character. When they get off the steamboat in Cairo Mr. Wheeler's car isn't there to pick them up, and so they accept a ride in a motorboat with a stranger (dumb, dumb, kids). The stranger is of course hell bent on kidnapping them, but they manage to escape. Trixie is convinced the weird map and other papers they found are really important, and someone finally has the good sense to tell Mr. Wheeler, who alerts the authorities, who agree they're important and beg the kids to not meddle in their business. Of course the kids don't listen, and the next thing you know, Trixie and Honey, having learned NOTHING from being kidnapped by the motorboat pilot, are going off with two strangers claiming to be from the police (dumb, dumb kids). Turns out it's an international black market weapons dealer the kids have tangled with. Whoops. Luckily no one dies, although it was probably Trixie and Honey's closest shave yet. If I were Mr. Wheeler, I wouldn't ever take those crazy kids anywhere ever again.
Something to snap me out of my book funk! (and rereading Trixie Belden!). Curtin Sittenfeld's "Eligible" is a modern update of "Pride and Prejudice". Of course it lacked most of the charm that makes P&P so amazing, but I still enjoyed it. Liz and her older sister, Jane, come home to Cincinnati from New York after their father has a heart attack. Liz is appalled by the condition of the old family home and finds her parents buried under a mountain of debt. The only solution is to get her younger sisters Mary, Kitty, and Lydia out of the house and sell it. Good luck convincing her mom of that, though.
She and Jane meet Fitzwilliam Darcy, a neurosurgeon, and his friend, Chip Bingley, at a party. Jane and Chip hit it off, but Liz finds Darcy snobbish and unappealing. It was strange to have Darcy and Liz having sex before being together, I'm so used to the primness of P&P that it felt really wrong, but it was cute and a quick read.
Trixie sets out to prove that she doesn't have to leave home to cause problems in "The Mystery of the Missing Heiress". Jim has a cousin! His Aunt Betje left behind a daughter, Juliana, who is heir to a parcel of land near Manor House that's worth a lot of money. Juliana shows up in town and Trixie doesn't much care for her, even if she is Jim's cousin.
At the hospital, Trixie and Honey visit with a young woman called "Janie". Janie is suffering from amnesia after being struck by a car. Mrs. Belden arranges for her to come stay and recuperate at Crabapple Farm, while Trixie tries to hunt for any clues to her identity. She's sure she's figured it out when she reads a plea in a newspaper from a woman who's sister went missing a few weeks earlier, but after Mr. Wheeler flies them all out to meet the sister, it turns out Janie isn't her. Meanwhile, Juliana is acting more and more suspicious and nasty. Of course once Juliana's fiance from Holland, Hans, comes to town and as soon as Janie sees him, she remembers that SHE is Juliana. Hooray! The impostor was Jim's evil stepfather's niece.
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