(4) 4-6 Aptly nicknamed Rebel, fourteen-year-old Amanda foregoes a European vacation to help her grandmother remodel an old Seattle home. Moses, an older boy who turns out to be a slight romantic interest, joins the project and becomes Rebel's sleuthing partner when the two stumble across a mystery and then try to solve it--a fairly straightforward task since clues appear with convenient regularity.

Reviewer: Betty Carter

(4) 4-6 Nikki is still grieving her mother's death when Dad announces he's marrying Crystal. As the family vacations in Crystal's childhood home, Crystal's increasingly erratic behavior suggests she is hiding a secret from her past. Part of the plot is based on the unlikely premise that a family harboring a known murderer would invite fourteen-year-old Nikki to work in their home, but the "undercurrent" of suspense is well maintained throughout.

Reviewer: Peter D. Sieruta

(4) 4-6 Eleven-year-old Buddy has more to worry about than her boyish nickname in this problem/mystery novel. Her father's inexplicable disappearance follows her mother's recent death, and Buddy is sent to live with aunts in Montana. There Buddy confronts dysfunctional family members as she tries to puzzle out secrets of the past that affect her present and possibly her future. Some stock characters and awkward plotting impede the story, whose resolution is a happy one.

Reviewer: Carolyn Shute

(4) 4-6 Stopping home from school in the morning to get allergy medicine, eleven-year-old Kaci surprises burglars in her house and becomes, along with a "nosy" elderly neighbor, their captive. The dialogue is fairly stiff, and the first-person narrative sometimes sounds too adult, but readers can still feel an adrenaline rush from wondering how Kaci will manage to escape this tense situation alive.

Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann

(4) 4-6 After Rob witnesses the murder of the neighborhood tattletale, Mrs. Calloway, a few near-"accidents" convince him that he may be the next victim. Rob's confrontation with the killer is somewhat anticlimactic, but his repeated attempts to tell his family--who are engrossed in preparations for his sister's wedding--will keep young mystery fans in suspense.

Reviewer: Tanya D. Auger

(4) YA After the death of her parents, fourteen-year-old Teddi moves in with next-door neighbor Mamie. When a pregnant woman arrives, claiming to be the wife of Mamie's son (killed two weeks earlier in a plane crash), Teddi smells a scam. Although readers will become impatient waiting for Teddi's suspicions to be validated, they'll sympathize enough with her character to keep reading.

Reviewer: Tanya D. Auger

(4) 4-6 Known for his tall tales and his run-ins with a bully named Willie, Joey Bishop has difficulty convincing anyone that he witnessed Willie's abduction outside the boys' elite prep school. The story features a stereotypically taciturn father and socialite mother, and the kidnappers' hideout--just one apartment below the Bishops'--strains credibility. However, Joey is an engaging protagonist, and the mystery is fast paced.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.