This month, I started reading the Trixie Belden series, which features
spunky 13-year-old sleuth Trixie and her close-knit band of friends and
siblings, who call themselves the Bob-Whites: gentle Honey Wheeler,
pretty Diana Lynch, resourceful Jim Frayne and Trixie’s brothers, witty
Mart and studious Brian. I just finished the seventh book, Trixie Belden and the Mysterious Code,
and while it has some intense scenes and a couple fun new characters, I
found it harder to get into than the ones that preceded it. That’s
because this was the point at which the writing of the series was taken
over by a succession of ghost writers using the name Kathryn Kenny.
Characterization was Campbell’s strong suit, and it wasn’t the strong
suit of whoever was in charge of writing this volume, making it my least
favorite of the series thus far.
The story begins with the
Bob-Whites in an uproar because the school board disapproves of their
club, mostly since there has been vandalism occurring on school property
and they suspect gang activity. If the Bob-Whites can’t prove that
their club is making a valuable contribution to society, they’ll have to
disband. Frankly, this premise didn’t make much sense to me. What
business is it of the school board what these kids do off school
property? I could understand them saying they’re not allowed to wear
their club jackets in school, but beyond that, it doesn’t seem like they
would have that kind of authority. And what exactly would disbanding
the Bob-Whites mean? The six of them are still going to hang out all the
time no matter what, so what would be accomplished by that? And why
can’t a club just exist for the sake of existing?
But the
Bob-Whites have to do something, and quick, so Trixie formulates a plan.
They’ll have an antiques show, selling some items and merely displaying
others, and the money raised will go to UNICEF. I think that UNICEF is a
worthy organization, and I’ve donated to it a couple of times myself.
But I couldn’t help wondering, in the early chapters, if somebody from
UNICEF paid this author off to turn the book into one big pitch to
donate to the fund. “Working with other organizations in the United
Nations, UNICEF has trained nurses, doctors, teachers, technicians, in
about eighty countries in the world, helping them to make use of their
own resources,” Trixie tells the rest of the club. “You see, it isn’t
just for today they are helping, but for years to come.” And every time
someone, especially Trixie, talks about UNICEF, you get something like
this spiel, usually with shining eyes to accompany it. After a couple of
chapters, though, that gets toned down a bit, so the book starts to
feel more like a regular story and less like a PSA. And if Trixie’s
speeches have inspired real kids to pitch in to help needy kids around
the world, then I suppose it’s a worthwhile trade-off…
Once I
got past the odd premise and the speechifying, what continued to
distract me was the way in which the characters were written. They seem
like themselves, but not quite, and some less than others. Mart isn’t
quite as funny in this book, but generally, he seemed about right to me,
as did Di and Jim. Brian mostly did too, though he seems excessively
annoyed with Mart’s use of big words, and it’s silly to have him imply
that Mart doesn’t know what any of those words mean when his sentences,
while overblown, make perfect sense. Honey definitely seems a little off
to me; she appears to truly resent Trixie’s sleuthing obsession,
disregarding her own stated interest in becoming a detective herself.
While she’s always been on the jittery side, it’s overdone here, not
just with the mystery but with having her blanch at a Western and the
sight of a pair of Samurai swords found in her attic. And Trixie is just
so syrupy here, particularly when it comes to certain word choices,
like her calling her father “Daddy” instead of “Dad” and showering
six-year-old Bobby with terms of endearment like “lamb” and “honey”.
Bobby
probably bugs me more than any other character, since he has such a
distinctive way of speaking in the first six books and that’s all but
tossed out the window here. Once in a while he’ll use a word like “holp”
or “losted,” but mostly, he doesn’t sound like himself at all, and he
doesn’t seem nearly rambunctious enough. Bobby usually makes me chuckle,
but that didn’t happen much in this book. Meanwhile, Trixie’s mom comes
across as very easy-going in the first six books, but here, she’s both a
worrywart and a nag, not to mention seemingly a bit jealous of Mrs.
Wheeler’s looks. Indeed, she seems very hung up on looks here, and her
constant getting on Trixie’s case to not be such a tomboy got on my
nerves.
Along with individual character differences, there’s a
distinct difference in writing style too. Mostly, I noticed that while
the first six books only let us peek into Trixie’s head from time to
time, here, we get a glimpse of what other characters are thinking, too.
However, with Campbell, we could pretty much infer what they were
thinking without being told upfront, and that made for more dynamic
reading. For instance, “The thing Jim liked best about Trixie was her
spirit of adventure, her readiness to go anywhere any time and not hold
back, afraid, as so many girls did. Lately Jim had been noticing, too,
that Trixie was a pretty girl.” All of this rings true, but its
presentation is more organic in the earlier books, particularly Mystery Off Glen Road, when he is so clearly annoyed by Trixie’s sudden infatuation with Honey’s cousin.
All
that said, while certain aspects of the writing continued to grate a
little as the book went on, I still got caught up in the story. The
titular code doesn’t ultimately play a huge role in the book, but its
initial introduction offers an intriguing glimpse into Jim’s family
history, and Trixie finds a clever way to make use of it when she’s in a
tight spot later. It would have been fun if the whole code could have
been included as an appendix so that readers could come up with their
own secret messages. Even with the nine code letters provided, you could
do that to some extent.
Trixie and the others spend the whole
book looking at various antiques, and those are pretty interesting. I
kept thinking, “Too bad Antiques Roadshow didn’t exist back
then!” Some of the stuff they round up seems likely to be pretty
valuable. The swords are especially interesting, as are the characters
who become associated with them. I also like Trixie’s kind-hearted but
tough neighbor, Mrs. Vanderpoel, and her eccentric friend, the elderly
Mr. Brom, who tells wild tales of local folk legends and bonds with
Bobby as a result.
Though it’s a bit of a detour from the main
story, I like the adventure that Trixie, Jim and Brian have when they go
off in search of Reddy, the Beldens’ Irish Setter, one snowy night. It
gives them an opportunity to show their ingenuity and resolve, and it’s
nice to see Brian with a moment in the spotlight, since Mart tends to be
in the thick of things more than Brian does. This is also the fourth
book in the series to incorporate a holiday, in this case Valentine’s
Day, and it’s fun to see the hints of romance blossoming as a result of
the Valentine dance Di hosts. And while Campbell took a break from the
bad guys in the last two books, a couple of pretty unsavory characters
show up here, making it feel like a more traditional mystery, and there
are enough new characters here that we don’t immediately know who to
suspect of nefarious activity.
So I still recommend The Mysterious Code,
but definitely not as a starting point. The established characters
simply aren’t as vibrant here, and several of them don’t seem entirely
like themselves. If you’re hooked on the characters already, there are
enough interesting elements to keep the pages turning in the first of 33
post-Campbell Trixie books. Still, it’s good to know that they weren’t
all written by the same person. Here’s hoping the next Kathryn Kenny is a
little more to my liking.
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