Book Review: The Mystery at Maypenny's by Kathryn Kenny (Trixie Belden #31)

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Characters, presents an underrepresented side in an important debate

Cons: Very weak mystery, important debate more one sided than I would have liked.

The Bottom Line:

Weaker mystery

As town debate takes the stage

Characters still strong

Sadly, Not as Good as I Remembered It

I remember being impressed with The Mystery at Maypenny's when I first read it as a teen, but I know many fellow Trixie Belden fans who think the book has serious weaknesses.  Rereading it for the first time in many years, sadly, I was able to see just what those weaknesses are.

If you aren’t familiar with Trixie Belden, she is a teen detective.  Think the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew with better defined characters.  She lives in a small town in New York called Sleepyside and she, her two older brothers, and their friends, including Trixie’s best friend Honey, have formed a club called the Bob-Whites.  Sleepyside might be a small town, but they seem to be a hot bed of crime as once again there is trouble brewing in the small town.

However, this time, that trouble comes in the form of International Pine.  This furniture company has already built a factory in town, and they want to expand production by building another one.  The site they want to use is located in the Wheeler’s preserve.  However, Honey Wheeler’s father doesn’t own all the land.  Part of it is owned by Mr. Maypenny.  While Mr. Wheeler has agreed to sell the land, Mr. Maypenny absolutely refuses.  As the issue heats up, it divides the town and even the Bob-Whites.

Meanwhile, Mr. Maypenny gets a surprise when his long lost nephew makes contact.  Throw in an out of town environmentalist, and you’ve got plenty of trouble.  How will it all be resolved?

And more importantly, where is the mystery?  While I vividly remembered certain scenes and plot points in the book, I couldn’t exactly remember what the mystery was.  There was a reason for that.  The mystery was shoehorned into the book almost as an afterthought.  Even when it does come to the forefront, we only get a glimpse before it is all being wrapped up for us by other characters in a few exposition heavy scenes.  The focus, instead, is on the proposed expansion of the furniture factory, which provides more than enough conflict to keep us reading.

Here’s the part I liked most when I first read it as a teen.  By the time I got to this book in the series, I realized one key factor – everyone but the villain would get a happy ending.  As we went along, I just couldn’t see how that was going to happen this time.  The ending was a bit of a cheat in some ways, but it also does show the importance of thinking outside the box.

I also remembered this book as being fairly even handed in the growth vs. environment debate.  Sadly, that’s not quite the case.  Instead, the book definitely takes the pro-growth side with the environmentalist character introduced here being more a caricature than anything else and that side never quite getting a fair explanation in the book.  However, I still like the fact that the author even tried.  So often, when this subject comes up, the arguments for growth are overlooked.  This is an important debate with two sides with information that we should be considering.  Sadly, this isn’t quite as even handed as I wish it could be.  Then again, this is fiction, and fiction aimed at middle graders, so I was probably expecting too much out of it.

The characters are actually fairly strong in this book.  While Di Lynch is written out for at least half of the story, Dan actually plays a bigger role than normal here which makes sense since he lives with Mr. Maypenny.  The rest of the Bob-Whites are at their best as are the supporting characters in the series.  From a character standpoint, this is definitely one of the stronger books in the later part of the series.

Overall, however, the underdeveloped mystery makes The Mystery at Maypenny's weaker than it could have been.

But don't let a weak book keep you from checking out the rest of the Trixie Belden Mysteries.