Donna caught my eye. I knew what she was thinking. Looking for missing things and missing people is what Eye Spy Investigators is all about.
Lady in Red by Tessa Buckley is a MG mystery/detective story.
This is the 3rd book in the Eye Spy series, but it reads perfectly as a standalone.
Siblings Alex and Donna Macintyre are a team behind the Eye Spy Investigations agency.
Alex is scared of snakes, and is not enthusiastic about his sister striking friendship with Jake, an Australian boy, whose pet corn snake called Queenie makes him uncomfortable.
Jake is staying with the O'Connors at Acacia Villa. The villa is divided into two houses. No.1, where Jake lives, looks well cared for. The second half of the house which looks dilapidated and derelict was once the home of the local artist Gabriel Pascoe.
The current Mr Pascoe, the artist's grandson, tells the children the story of the missing painting, Lady in Red. It was the portrait of Garbriel's wife Maude, wearing a red dress. Nobody knows what's happened to the artwork. When the war started, the artist has hidden it to keep safe, without telling anyone where exactly to look for it.
Alex and Donna offer their help to find out what has happened to the missing portrait.
The twins parents' are divorced. Their mother has left them to find happiness with a successful businessman. Now she's got a new baby, her children from the first marriage don't appear to be much of interest to her.
Alex is quite philosophical about it, "Our mother had thought being a businesswoman was more important than looking after us. That was why we lived with Nan and Dad".
Their father is an absent-minded inventor who is preoccupied with the launch of his latest invention. The twins seem to be pretty much unsupervised, going to meet the kids they've just met in a strange house. The grandma makes a half-baked attempt to tell them off for gallivanting around the town, but most of the time they are free to pursue their detecting.
They want to explore the boarded part of Acacia Villa and do a proper search of the premises. It has been bought by a property developer who plans to pull down the whole house and build a block of flats.
Elderly Mr Pascoe doesn't want to sell his house.
Little does he know, that the unscrupulous developer would stop at nothing to obtain the property. Bad things begin to happen, a sudden flood occurs, then the power is cut off by "accident". And Mr Pascoe has a heart attack after being harassed by the developer. It looks like the old house will have to be sold after all.
If the house is demolished, the vital clues will be destroyed, and the fate of Lady in Red will remain a mystery forever.
It is a race against time for Alex and Donna to solve the case. The adults are not helping, if anything, the grandmother forbids them to do any sleuthing. And Mr Mortimer, the nasty developer, happens to be a god-father for their half-sister Sophie. Querying his motives and honesty could open up a can of worms and bring a family rift. Their mother and her new husband are aghast that the twins accuse their friend of being a crook.
They are grounded for the foreseeable future as a punishment.
Then Queenie goes missing, and that sets in motion a disastrous train of events and leads the twins and their new friends into the most perilous situation.
This fast-paced mystery will appeal to the fans of Enid Blyton, M.G.Leonard and Sam Sedgman. I enjoyed reading this book, and hope my son will read it soon as well.
It's an exciting cosy crime for middle graders, and also a story of friendship, loyalty and family drama. I can't wait to find out what Alex and Donna will get up to in the next adventure.
Many thanks to Tessa Buckley, Matador and Rachel's Random Resources for my copy of the book!
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