Review: Good Amateur Detective Mystery
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 5, 2014
I love vintage mystery stories and wanted to try these. When I read the reviews for the Penny Parker Mega-pack of 15 stories, I found out there were two not included, this one and Tale of The Witch Doll. So I added this one to the collection. I grew up reading the Hardy Boys series in the late 50's. These Penny Parker stories are more sophisticated and more older teen - young adult suited. Good humor, good rich characters. Penny Parker gets into all kinds of mysteries and troubles which she tackles with her friends and father. Some slapstick too when the sassy and indomitable Penny falls into a river, swims to shore in her good clothes or has to tramp through water or mud in her good shoes as her adventures progress. These stories give a good glimpse of the simpler, more innocent 1930's to 1940's every day life (from their household to school to her father's newspaper plant to their home town). Cliffhangers where Penny (often with her best chum) get trapped by the bad guys and have to engineer their escape. I enjoyed these stories from the author who wrote most of the Nancy Drew stories under a pen name. A lot of fun reading and cheaper than the Nancy Drew or Hardy Boy stories. Good bang for the buck.