Trixie Belden and the Mystery of the Headless Horseman; The Mystery of the Ghostly Galleon; The Hudson River Mystery; Indian Burial Ground Mystery; Mystery of the Galloping Ghost

 I always liked the "Headless Horseman" when I was a kid, it was a fun one. The Bob-Whites are putting on a bazaar to raise money for...UNICEF, I think? I forget. Some charity or another :) At any rate, the night before Di's butler, Harrison, goes missing. Since the bazaar is at Di's house and the only way her parents would agree to it, since they're out of town, is if Harrison supervises, so Trixie and Honey go looking for him. They find him locked in the cellar of his friend Mrs. Crandall's house. Harrison claims he accidentally locked himself in there, but Trixie investigates the door and discovers there's no way he could have, someone locked him in. If that weren't mysterious enough, it turns out Mrs. Crandall's late husband, Jonathan, was the prime suspect in the disappearance of a valuable Ming vase from the museum where he worked. He passed away suddenly before anyone could find the missing vase. Trixie is convinced she can figure it out and clear Mr. Crandall's name. It's elementary :)

Another really fun one. A true milestone in the Trixie series: Dan actually got to go somewhere with the Bob-Whites!! Hey, I think it's the first and only time, poor guy. The Bob-Whites are in the Catskills, at Miss Trask's family home, which is a pirate themed inn! Miss Trask, girl, you have been holding out on us. Who knew she was so cool? And there's a real mystery to be solved. One of her ancestors disappeared in a room full of people, seconds before he would have been arrested by British soldiers. Miss Trask's brother, Frank, announces he's solved the mystery and right before he is able to explain, he disappears too!
His loan is due to be paid, and the safe is empty. Miss Trask doesn't know where he hid the money, but if the Bob-Whites don't find Frank before seven o'clock, the Inn will belong to Nick, who loaned Frank the money.

"Hudson River Mystery" is the one where I learned not to eat apple seeds :)
Trixie swears she sees a shark in the Hudson. Meanwhile, big brother Brian is acting weird: he actually gets in a (very minor) car wreck, flunks a big test, and is questioning whether or not he even wants to be a doctor! When he faints at his birthday dinner, everyone figures out quick that Brian's really sick. He's been poisoned. Poor guy :( Turns out his lab partner, Loyola, has been feeding him Waldorf salad full of apple seeds, which can lead to cyanide poisoning. Whoops. As to the sharks in the Hudson, it was a couple of treasure hunters looking for a ship that went down that was rumored to be full of gold.

The covers of these last few slay me. Why does Trixie have a mullet?
Jim isn't in this one, either. Boo.
Mr. Wheeler is letting an archaeological dig take place in his preserve, and the Bob-Whites are all helping out. Trixie is suspicious of Charles Miller, a graduate student leading the dig. He's very unfriendly and pays way too much attention to the valuables in Honey's house.
What really ticked me off about this one was the ghostwriter said Lady was Trixie's favorite horse, when clearly it was Susie. Get it right, people!

None of the boys are in this one, and Honey is infatuated with Pat Murrow, the son of the rancher they are visiting in Minnesota (I kept screaming "what about Brian?"), so this one is definitely one of my least favorites. Plus the writer said Honey had blue eyes. No she did not. They were hazel.
The horse ranch may or may not be haunted by a man who was lynched for stealing a cow, but Mr. Murrow still doesn't want to sell to Burke, the guy building ugly condos on the land surrounding the Murrow's ranch. It was weird and pretty dumb, honestly.




And that's it for the Trixie rereads. I skipped #14, because I read it not that long ago and remembered it really well, so I didn't feel like reading it again, although I might. I'm not sure what I'm going to do now. Read actual adult books I haven't read before, I suppose :)

Mystery Off Old Telegraph Road; Mystery of the Castaway Children; Mystery at Mead's Mountain; Mystery of the Queen's Necklace; Mystery at Saratoga; The Sasquatch Mystery; The Big Showdown

The Art Department holds a show to raise much needed funds for art supplies, but the turnout is so poor Trixie and Honey are convinced the Bob-Whites can do much better, so they organize a bike-a-thon. Trixie is surprised when Nick Roberts, one of the most passionate art students, is totally against the idea and tries to talk them out of it (surprisingly not because he's insulted by their arrogance). The Bob-Whites forge ahead anyway. One of the rest stops on the bike-a-thons trail is an abandoned house owned by Matthew Wheeler (what a lucky coincidence!). Trixie finds a partially burned Deutsche mark there while tidying up for the big day, and is convinced there are counterfeiters working out of the abandoned house (she's right, BTW). Wait...didn't we have counterfeiters in "The Antique Doll" as well? Jeez, why is Sleepyside such a haven for these types of criminals?

 This one was always one of my favorites as a kid. The Bob-Whites find an abandoned baby in Reddy's doghouse one night. It doesn't take long to discover he belongs to a family nearby. Both their small sons are missing, and the parents are worried sick over a ransom note that tells them not to get the police involved. Somehow Trixie manages to talk Sergeant Molinson into letting her and Honey help out, since the kidnappers won't be expecting a couple of teenage girls to be doing a policeman's job (and for good reason...). Trixie realizes the ransom notes are fake when they still refer to "children" as being missing after the baby has been returned to his parents. It was fun to see the Bob-Whites caring for an infant, fighting over who got to feed him and take care of him. I think that's why I liked it so much as a kid, I could just see big, strong, redheaded Jim tenderly carrying around a baby. Sigh....:)

I never much cared for "The Mystery at Mead's Mountain" as a kid. Like "Cobbett's Island", it was too heavy on the sports information for me. I care so very little about skiing I was like zzz.... Mr. Wheeler sends the gang to Mead's Mountain. One of his friends is looking to buy the place and turn it into a fun resort, and he wants the young people's opinions about how much fun it would be for kids their age. Strange things happen right off the bat: Honey's watch is stolen, the girls are locked out of their room, mysterious notes keep warning them to get off the mountain. They discover a cranky old hermit in the woods and Trixie is convinced he's a counterfeiter (good God, *another* one!!). I did enjoy them eating at a vegetarian restaurant, I got a kick out of the idea of Mart actually enjoying a meatless meal.

I'm putting a question mark next to "reread" on this one because honestly, I didn't remember it at all. It wasn't one I owned as a kid, I bought it as an adult, used, online. Maybe I didn't have time to read it once I bought it? Or if I did I only read it once and it didn't stick. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The Wheelers take Trixie and Mart to England with them (Brian has to work). So it's just Honey and Trixie and Mart and Jim, which was actually kind of fun. Honey has inherited a necklace from a great-aunt, and the girls are trying to figure out its history. Miss Trask is with them, and she's investigating Mrs. Wheeler's family tree, turns out her maiden name was Hart and she might have been related to Shakespeare! It was really fun and mentioned quite a lot about British history, which is another passion of mine. It was great to combine the two.

I was never a fan of this one as a kid, because Jim and Mart weren't in it, and Regan spends a good portion of the book looking guilty. What's the point if my three favorite guys aren't in it?
Regan disappears from the Wheeler's stable with no explanation after Mr. Wheeler is visited by Mr. Worthington, who owns racehorses. The girls (the boys are off at camp) discover that Regan was suspected seven years earlier of having doped one of Mr. Worthington's racehorses, and he disappeared. Proving once again that the Wheelers have never heard the term "background check", they hired him not knowing his checkered past. When Regan hears Worthington is visiting his current employers, he leaves to go to Saratoga to clear his name once and for all. The girls follow along, convinced they can help him out. Luckily the boys show up at the end to rescue Trixie and Honey, who have once again gotten in over their heads.
I just now realized how very sexist that is. Moving on.

 "The Sasquatch Mystery" was another one I never liked as a kid, because it deals with camping. Blah. The only way I'll camp is with an indoor toilet and a blow dryer. So, not at all :)
The Bob-Whites (minus Dan as usual, that poor kid never gets to go anywhere) are visiting the Belden cousins in Idaho when they see a real Sasquatch! Cap goes missing, and everyone's convinced the Sasquatch got him.

And finally, another Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins Western combo. It was fun: Caleb York got rid of Trinidad's no good Sheriff and is ready to hit the road, going to San Diego. Willa Cullen isn't any too pleased about him leaving, but then again Caleb never made any promises. Just as he's about to get on the stagecoach, the bank is robbed and the new sheriff, a friend of his, is gunned down. Caleb decides he better stay on long enough to catch the murderer and restore the funds to the bank.

Mystery of the Uninvited Guest; Mystery of the Phantom Grasshopper; Nightshift

It's cousin Juliana's wedding, and there's this weird invalid lady, Miss Ryks, hanging around that no one knows. No one can get a straight answer out of her, either, as to who she's related to. Meanwhile, Dan has disappeared, Trixie's cousin Hallie is visiting (lots of cousins, all of a sudden) and Bobby is acting very odd. Even worse, food is disappearing at an alarming rate out of Mrs. Belden's larder. I always wondered who the redhead was on the cover. Is it Jim? Regan? Mr. Wheeler? Too many redheaded men running around Sleepyside to know for sure :)

Sleepyside has an antique weather vane atop City Hall that Trixie's mother has always called "Hoppy". Saying hello to Hoppy is supposed to bring you good luck, so Trixie and the other girls always make sure to pay their regards when they're nearby. On the morning after a terrible storm, Hoppy is gone! A reward is offered for Hoppy's safe return. If that wasn't bad enough, a valuable coin collection on loan to the school has been stolen. Trixie is convinced the two are related.

And finally, something besides Trixie. Charlaine Harris' latest Midnight Crossroads book, "Nightshift". A demon is compelling people to come and commit suicide in the small town. It's starting to look suspicious. Lemuel is trying to transcribe an old text to see if he can determine what's causing the suicides, but it's slow going. With the help of another vampire, he's able to determine there's a demon trapped under the town, and it's feeding off the dead people in order to break free. Only Fiji has the power to stop it, and she has to perform a ritual on top of the road to stop the demon from being able to ascend. It was fun, a quick read.

The Happy Valley Mystery; The Marshland Mystery; The Mystery at Bob-White Cave; The Mystery of the Blinking Eye; The Mystery on Cobbett's Island; The Mystery on the Mississippi; Eligible; The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

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.

Trixie Belden and the Black Jacket Mystery; Save Me, Kurt Cobain

 Can I just start by saying this cover slays me. What the heck is Bobby wearing?! It looks like a polyester leisure suit. He looks like Mr. Farley from "Three's Company".
Anyway, Regan brings his nephew, Dan Mangan, to live with Mr. Maypenny. Dan got in with a bad gang in New York and Regan's hoping having a real home will help the boy mend his ways. Dan gets off on the wrong foot with Trixie, who's convinced he's a liar and a thief. Of course it's all a big misunderstanding and Dan rescues Bobby, who was somehow wandering around the Wheeler's game preserve during a storm looking for a catamount and fell down a hole and got his leg pinned by a rock. No doubt Trixie was supposed to be babysitting.

I finally read something other than a Trixie Belden reread!
I read a few reviews for Jenny Manzer's new YA title, "Save Me, Kurt Cobain" a few months ago. It sounded like an interesting premise: The year is 2006, and fifteen year old Nico lives with her dad Verne in Victoria, Canada. Her mom disappeared eleven years earlier and Nico doesn't know a whole lot about her. She finds a box of her mother's things, and inside are some CDs. It turns out Nico and her mom liked a lot of the same bands, including Nirvana. Nico finds photos of her mom at two Nirvana concerts in March of 1991, before they got famous, and one of her mom's CDs looks like it's been autographed by Kurt Cobain. She also finds a letter her mom wrote him but never sent, wishing she'd been able to follow the band on the rest of their tour.
Nico goes to visit her aunt in Seattle over the Christmas holiday, and on the ferry ride home she spots a slight, blond man with electric blue eyes and is convinced it's Kurt Cobain. She follows him off the ferry, hides out in his car, and ends up at his remote cabin. The man tells her his name is Daniel and he's a writer, he writes under a pseudonym and eschews fame. She tells him about her mom disappearing, he tells her wistfully about his daughter he gets to see "sometimes", and a less than forgiving ex-wife. Nico is convinced not only is Daniel really Kurt, but he's also her real father.
I'm still not sure how I felt about this book. I was glad Manzer mentioned that there are people who disagree with the suicide story, and she didn't make it out like we're all nutballs, which is nice. She also got some major things wrong, though, which, yes, I know it's fiction, but when Nico is purportedly telling factual things about Kurt Cobain that are just wrong, it made me crazy. His uncles never committed suicide, she mentions quotes from the "suicide" note which are not actually in the note, but were read by his widow and purported to be in the note. Thanks to Tom Grant we have access to the actual note, so we know he didn't say that. She also called "Incesticide" a sort of "greatest hits" compilation, which it was not, it was mostly demos and outtakes the record company put out to cash in on the overnight success of "Nevermind". I did like how cleverly she inserted Nirvana lyrics, I think I caught them all. It's a lovely thought, that he faked his own death to get away from it all and is currently living in a remote cabin writing books, but of course that's all it is: fiction. It was also hard (and made me realize how old I am) to hear Nirvana described by teenagers as a band their parents liked.
Sigh.

Trixie Belden and the Mystery in Arizona; Trixie Belden and the Mysterious Code

 So Di's *real* Uncle Monty invites the Bob-Whites to spend Christmas in Arizona at his dude ranch. Once the gang gets there, though, they are met with bad news: Uncle Monty's entire staff up and left under mysterious circumstances, so Monty has no one to wait tables or clean the rooms. Trixie of course volunteers the Bob-Whites' services, and Monty eagerly accepts. There are a lot of mysteries going on in Arizona at once: why did the Orlandos leave so suddenly? Why is Rosita so unhappy? Why can't Trixie concentrate long enough to get her math homework done? :) Of course in the end it all works out. I remember being annoyed with this book as a kid by all the history and descriptions of Arizona, a state I was fairly familiar with, and Mexican food. I found it incredible that they'd never had tortillas or guacamole before. Growing up in So Cal, that food is a staple, so I was like what's the big deal, you guys?

I didn't really remember this one, at least not how it ended. I remembered the stick figure code, and I vaguely remember trying to learn it as a kid, too. There have been a rash of vandalism and burglaries at the kids' school, and the board is cracking down on non-sanctioned clubs. The Bob-Whites have to prove their worth in order to keep their club, so they decide to hold a big antiques show, with the proceeds going to UNICEF.
Let me stop for a minute. First of all, I didn't understand how the school board could legally tell them what they could do AFTER SCHOOL AND OFF OF SCHOOL GROUNDS. I mean, come on! If they told me "nope, you can't have your club anymore" I would have laughed to death, even at fourteen or sixteen or however old these kids were. Jim and Brian were supposed to be smart, why didn't one of them tell the principal or the guidance counselor of whoever it was to buzz off? And what about their parents? If I came home from school and told my dad I couldn't have my club with my friends anymore, he would have been on the phone in half a second telling the school board where to shove it.
At any rate, so the kids panic, thinking the school's going to force them to give up their club and they start prepping like mad for this antique show. Things get stolen, Jim and Trix and Brian are caught in a blizzard, there's a Valentine's Day party and Jim gives Trixie an orchid, a whole bunch of stuff is going on in this one. In the end Trixie helps the cops catch the bad guy and the antique show goes off splendidly, raising tons of money to buy milk for poor kids in third world countries who have never had milk in their lives (and honestly are better off because of it, but veganism wasn't big in the early 1960s when this book was first written). It was still fun, if completely and utterly bonkers.
This book marked the first of the "Katherine Kenny" written ones. Julie Campbell, a real person, wrote the first six and then decided she was done, so the publisher had a team of in house writers keep up the series. There was no one person named "Katherine Kenny". Apparently this was a fairly common practice (I remember being devastated as kid when I found out Ann M. Martin didn't write all the Baby-Sitter's Club books). So the tone changed, and there are a lot of discrepancies (all of a sudden Tom doesn't like horses?).

Trixie Belden and the Mystery of the Antique Doll; The Secret of the Mansion; The Red Trailer Mystery; The Gatehouse Mystery; The Mysterious Visitor

I sort of vaguely remembered the "Antique Doll". It was one I bought once I got older, maybe ten or fifteen years ago, so I didn't grow up reading them over and over like I did the original set of 34 (or most of the original set, I should say, I was missing a few). Trixie and Honey offer to help out an elderly woman who has sprained her wrist. She lives next door to the new antique store. Trixie is immediately suspicious when she and Honey go in to look around and the owner of the store doesn't seem to know anything at all about antiques. When he finds out the girls are going to Paris for the weekend on Mr. Wheeler's private jet, he asks if they'll do him a big favor while they are there and pick up a doll from a man. He's too afraid to ship it because she's so valuable and frail. The girls of course agree and bring the doll back. Turns out the doll is concealing engraving plates to make counterfeit twenty dollar bills. Boy, these two. Even a simple jaunt to Paris has to turn into something sketchy :)

I decided to go back to the beginning, rather than reread the later ones I don't really care much for. "The Secret of the Mansion" is where it all began. Thirteen year old Trixie Belden is looking at a long, boring summer since her older brothers are away at camp. Then a girl just her age named Honey Wheeler moves into the Manor House estate next door. The girls become fast friends, Honey teaching Trixie how to ride horses and Trixie teaching Honey how to ride a bicycle. Honey is a very lonely little girl who has grown up in boarding schools and is afraid of everything, but Trixie convinces her to go explore the old mansion on Ten Acres, the property on the other side of Trixie's house. Old Mr. Frayne was just taken to the hospital and not expected to live, and rumor has it he has half a million dollars hidden in the house. The girls don't find any money, but they do find one James Winthrop Frayne II (disclosure: I had the *biggest* crush on Jim when I was a kid and read these books for the first time). Jim ran away from his evil stepfather, Jonesy, and came to Sleepyside looking for his great-uncle. The girls and Jim become fast friends, spending every spare moment searching the rundown old mansion for Mr. Frayne's fortune. Jonesy eventually tracks Jim down to the mansion and accidentally starts a fire. Luckily Jim got out of the mansion in time but Jonesy believed he died in the fire. The next day Jim is gone, run off again before Jonesy could catch him, and Mr. Frayne's attorney shows up looking for him. Turns out Mr. Frayne did have money, and it's all Jim's now, plus Mr. Rainsford, the attorney, wants to appoint a new guardian for Jim since he has testimony from Jim's neighbors about how badly Jonesy treated him. The girls decide it's too risky for the *real* authorities to hunt Jim down and somehow talk their parents into letting Honey's governess, Miss Trask, take them on a wild goose chase to find Jim in the Wheeler's luxurious trailer. Because thirteen year old girls have much better resources for finding missing persons than the actual police.

Which brings us to the "Red Trailer Mystery"! Honey and Trixie and Miss Trask head to upstate New York, where the girls knew Jim was going to go job hunting at a boys' summer camp. Along the way they hear about trailer thieves and are extra cautious. One of their neighbors, the Lynches, had their red trailer the Robin stolen, and Trixie is sure the strange family they saw in the red trailer are the thieves. This book is actually pretty funny, at one point I think they were looking for four or five different people who were supposedly hiding out in the woods. It reminded me of a Perry Mason book I read where there were like ten people in this man's swimming pool one night (all at different times, of course). The dogs were forever running off and getting lost and the girls spent a heck of a lot of time lost in the woods themselves. They finally track down Jim (and the real trailer thieves, and Joeanne Darnell, who ran away from home, and...). A fight ensues over who is going to adopt the husky redheaded boy (I love how they kept describing him as "husky", like that was a good thing. Maybe it was back in the 1950s). Honey wins and convinces her parents to give her an older brother. Jim is adopted by the Wheelers and goes to live at the Manor House.

"The Gatehouse Mystery" is another one of my favorites, because Brian and Mart are back from summer camp (I kind of had a crush on Mart, too. What can I say?). The girls go exploring a rundown old gatehouse on the Wheeler's property that they are planning on turning into a clubhouse for their new club, the Bob-Whites (lots of rundown buildings in this area of New York, for some reason). Trixie finds a diamond in the dirt floor and convinces Honey to let her try to figure out how it got there. She's convinced she and Honey can track down the diamond thief better than the actual police could (I do love the sheer improbability of these books. I know it sounds like I'm making fun, but I truly do love them). Trixie is sure someone was hiding in the woods and overheard her and Honey's conversation. The next day, two men show up at Manor House looking for jobs: Nailor, a gardener, and Dick, a chauffeur. Both men are hired (the Wheelers apparently aren't big fans of background checks) and Dick is assigned a room over the garage with Regan (poor Regan. And yes, before you ask, I had a crush on him, too) while Nailor sleeps in the house. Trixie is positive she heard someone trying to sneak into Honey's room that night when she sleeps over, and she's convinced it's Dick. He certainly does act suspiciously, and of course in the end Trixie was right. Dick is arrested and the girls get a nice fat reward for their part in helping to catch a notorious pickpocket, which they use to buy Miss Trask a horse.

School is back in session, and if you think that will slow Trixie down at all, you're wrong :) Honey mentions that one of their classmates, pretty Di Lynch (she's always "pretty Di". Never forget that she's the prettiest) seems awfully sad and suggests they invite her over and make her a Bob-White. Seems a bit sudden to me, since they barely know the girl, but all right. Di is miserable with her parents' new wealth and her mom's long lost brother, Uncle Monty, is being a real pain. She wants to throw a fun, simple Halloween party but Monty gets involved and turns it into a big catered affair with a band and everything. Thanks to the rest of the Bob-Whites, the party isn't a complete catastrophe, but Trixie is convinced Uncle Monty is an impostor. Turns out she was right, and gets her and Mart nearly kidnapped for their troubles. Alls well that ends well, and as a reward Mr. Lynch gives them the red trailer from book 2, the Robin. The Bob-Whites give it to Tom, the Wheeler's chauffeur, and Celia, the Wheeler's maid, who are getting married and wanted the gatehouse. Now that Tom and Celia have the trailer, the Bob-Whites can keep their clubhouse. At least until the next big windstorm :)

Trixie Belden and the Mystery at Maypenny's; Mystery of the Whispering Witch; Mystery of the Vanishing Victim; Mystery of the Missing Millionaire; Mystery of the Memorial Day Fire

 A whole bunch of Trixie rereads. I vaguely remembered "The Mystery at Maypenny's". International Pine wants to build a new plant on Matt Wheeler's land, and while Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Belden are all for it, thinking of the jobs it will bring to economically depressed Sleepyside, Mr. Maypenny is against ruining the beauty and nature of the preserve. It seems the whole town is divided on just what should be done. Throw in an aggressive environmentalist, some dead ducks, and an impostor posing as Mr. Maypenny's nephew and you have a mystery! Of course it all works out in the end when International Pine is able to find the perfect location for their new factory closer to town, leaving the Wheeler's preserve intact.

 I didn't really remember "The Mystery of the Whispering Witch", and I didn't really like it. I'm sort of surprised it was even published, given it's subject matter, but then again kids eat up the Goosebumps series, so what do I know? (very little, is the correct answer :)). I think what really bugged me about this one was how completely tactless Honey is the whole time. Over the previous 31 books they've harped about how polite and sweet she is, and in this book she does a complete about face. Maybe she's spent too much time with Trixie. At any rate, the girls are trying to help out a friend who is living in a haunted house nearby. Strange things happen that can't be explained, until Di notices that the priceless antique furniture is actually fake. It was easy enough for Trixie to figure out the new owner of the house was removing the real furniture so he could burn it down and collect on the insurance.

I remembered "The Mystery of the Vanishing Victim". The Bob-Whites are holding a charity rummage sale, and one of the neighbors gives them a Model A to auction off. While driving it back to Crabapple Farm, it breaks down in a shady neighborhood. A stranger helps get the car running again, and then is promptly mowed down by a van while crossing the street. Trixie is determined to find out who the stranger really is and why someone would want to kill him, putting her and Honey's lives in danger!

"The Mystery of the Missing Millionaire", is one my favorites, I love how jealous Trixie gets of Jim and Laura's relationship. Trixie and Honey are out riding one morning and find a wallet with a hundred dollar bill. They take it to Mr. Lytell's store, and he tries to call the owner in New York, but there's no answer. Later on, he calls the girls and asks them to come back to his store. There's a beautiful young woman there named Laura Ramsey. She says the wallet belongs to her father, who has gone missing and she's terribly worried. It seems he and his longtime business partner have had a nasty fall out, and the business partner is just looking for an excuse to take over. If he discovers Laura's father is missing he will do just that. Laura mentions hiring a private investigator, but doesn't have the cash on hand to do so, since all her money's tied up under her father's name. Mr. Lytell loans her some money, and Honey insists she stay at Manor House while the investigator looks for her father. Trixie is suspicious from the start, and of course it turns out for good reason. Laura and the private eye are really con men, looking to milk poor old Mr. Lytell.

"The Mystery of the Memorial Day Fire" was one I sort of remembered. I definitely remembered the monogrammed button (I was arguing with a friend about monograms not too long ago, explaining that the initial of the last name would go in the middle, with the first name on the left and the middle name on the right. He wanted to know where I'd heard such a silly thing, and I told him straight off: from Trixie Belden! I'm right, BTW). Nick Robert's father's monogram shop is blown up during the Memorial Day parade, and he's a suspect, since he wanted out of his lease. Trixie suspects the new report in town, who is an arson expert and looking to stir up trouble.