SPOOKY SLEUTH & SOLVE

Following on Sleuth & Solve (2019), nine more mystery scenarios designed to test powers of observation and deduction.

“Malevolent beings” of one type or another—some drawn from classics like “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” or Jane Loudon’s The Mummy! (1827), others being generic creepy creatures like witches and ghosts—add mild chills to each short incident. Along with the occasional visual clue, Escandell’s cartoon illustrations add properly gothic shadows and leering, toothy figures. Following up on introductory instructions for young detectives on how to winkle clues out of narratives and pictures, Gallo concludes each of her briefly told plot summaries or setups with a question: “Which of the three men is the werewolf?”; “Who was the dog that Andrei met on the road?” Solutions, for those who need them, can be deciphered by use of a simple substitution code provided on the inside front cover. (Really clueless readers can turn to the back for the answers in clear prose.) She also suggests ways of making all of this a competitive game, offering arbitrary difficulty ratings for each mystery as a means of keeping score. The art is colored, but faces, being just line drawings, are paper white throughout with little to no attempt to indicate racial diversity.

Light encouragement for developing literary as well as logical chops.