Five Heads Are Better Than Two in Trixie Belden and The Gatehouse Mystery

“There is no definition of a fool that you fail to satisfy.” This is what good ol’ boy Llewelyn Moss mutters to himself in Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men after he realizes he’s made a grave mistake by snatching up a suitcase stuffed with money and left lying in a blood-soaked field. Though the circumstances are considerably less dire, I imagined Trixie saying the same thing to herself early in Trixie Belden and the Gatehouse Mystery after realizing that she may have bitten off more than she could chew in deciding to track down the dirty rotten thief who dropped a diamond on her best friend Honey Wheeler’s property.

In this third Trixie Belden book, Trixie and Honey have had such good luck with the mysteries that came their way over the summer that they’ve decided sleuthing is their ideal career path. They’ll be Sherlock Holmes and Watson, gathering clues and unmasking culprits together. When another mystery falls into their laps, Trixie is understandably intrigued, and her excitement is intense enough to convince a reluctant Honey to move the diamond to a safe hiding place and not notify the police. But can two 13-year-old girls really handle what looks to be a pair of hardened jewel thieves?

I found myself a bit frustrated with Trixie in the beginning for leaping into an investigation that could well get both her and Honey into a heap of trouble. But after the initial decision is made, there’s nothing for it but to press on. What neither girl anticipates is that their little detecting duo is about to expand into a quintet.

After that first burst of nervousness for our young protagonists, what I noticed most about this book was how very funny it is. This installment introduces Trixie’s older brothers Mart and Brian, who have just returned from a grueling summer taking care of six-year-old hooligans at camp. They never miss an opportunity to reflect on the horrors they experienced at the hands of these youngsters – or to torment Trixie with their superior vocabularies and jabs about her tomboyish ways. But all of the whining and ribbing is good-natured. These jovial lads are as affectionate as they are witty, and they clearly relish their big brotherly roles, whatever they may say to the contrary. Once they are in on the secret, along with Honey’s newly adopted brother Jim, their more world-wise perspective helps open up new avenues of exploration that Trixie and Honey hadn’t considered.

The youngest Belden, Bobby, is back in this volume, and the scamp made me laugh almost as much as Brian and Mart, especially during the tense but hilarious wild goose chase for the diamond that has gone missing. Friendly groom Regan returns as well, and I was surprised to read that he is in his early 20s, much younger than I had imagined. His generous spirit is such that everyone who comes into contact with him loves him – everyone, that is, except the new chauffeur, who dotes on Bobby but has a habit of snarling at the others, especially Trixie. Are her suspicions of him nothing more than a result of his animosity toward her?

As great as Honey and Trixie are together, adding Jim, Brian and Mart into the mix really adds to the fun. The banter is a blast, and suddenly even the prospect of armed robbers doesn’t seem so terrifying when there’s a whole group working against them. It helps, too, that Regan and Miss Trask, Honey’s agreeable governess, can usually be counted on to help without asking too many questions.

This third book feels like a second beginning to the series, the one that firmly establishes Trixie as an amateur detective and Honey, Jim, Mart and Brian as her sister and brothers in the biz. Sometimes nerve-wracking, often gut-busting and always entertaining, Trixie Belden and the Gatehouse Mystery is as irresistible as a diamond sparkling in the dirt on a summer day.