Skullduggery--The Shrieking Skull Book Review

The tiny little novel is probably aimed at elementary school aged kids to early middle school, and its writing is crisp, simple, and full of the usual conventions of children's mysteries: the characters are colorful and done in nice broad strokes (gruff police chief, oily property buyer, kindly librarian, etc). You'll probably guess who the culprit is right away, or halfway through the book, but you're along for the ride anyway to see how it plays out. Most mysteries are only half the whodunnit; the other half is that parlor scene of the HOW itdunnit. While orthodox, and probably cliched for older readers, they're warm and have lives of their own, especially the three main characters, who fill the role of "meddling kids", sticking their noses into the case predictably. Tom's the hero, Lorie his supportive and kind significant other, and Ben is the sidekick. You don't need much more than that. Most young reader books these days like to complicate and make kids' relationships more like adults' but everything is nice and sweet, and of those bygone days when 14 year olds could afford rock concert tickets with a month's allowance, and a kiss on the cheek is enough to get Tom's heart aflutterin'.

The book makes a few references to another case Tom and his friends have solved, but I wasn't able to find out if it also was a book (the book is going on 24 years old, info on it is hard to find), and if so, how it was written. It makes some assumption that Tom and his friends are something of junior detectives, down to even the police chief being on pretty good terms with them. If I could, I'd probably read that one too. XD The single slight flaw with the book is the lack of hard character description for some of the characters; trying to do art for it was hard for Ben because he was not described once physically (we're told he has a deep voice, and has a broad face, and that's it). Perhaps its because this was taken care of in the earlier book (if it exists). In fact, you don't even know what color Tom's hair is until near the end of the first chapter. The best descriptions are saved for places; the Weatherby mansion, the doctor's office, etc. Its a small quibble, but its there.