Adding to the circle of girl sleuths comes Allie Nichols, a sixth grader, who as a pastime, likes to solve some of life’s little puzzlements by inventing scenarios to explain away questions that surround situations she encounters.
While her teacher places a high value on Allie’s degree of imagination, Allie’s ways do not meet with the approval of all in her circle. Her parents decide to keep an eye on the situation and, worst of all, her two friends turn on her and label Allie a liar. Allie is fortunate that in the midst of this turmoil, Dub, her friend, sticks by her. In fact Dub stands by Allie’s side when Allie becomes convinced that she has been contacted by a spirit. The ghost that enters Allie’s life is the ghost of a girl whose disappearance has not been solved in the four year she was last seen.
Reading the diary of the dead girl, Lucy Stiles, leads Allie to strongly suspect that Lucy had been murdered when she got in the way of a greedy suitor of Lucy’s mother. Allie manages to bring out the killer even while endangering her own life. Allie manages to survive and the reader is led to believe that it is due to instrumentality of Lucy that we are presented with this fortunate ending.
Good writing and excellent pacing of the action makes this a worthy addition to the reading list of tween readers, especially those who are mystery fans.
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