When I started reading the Trixie Belden teen mystery series in January,
I took the first two books out at the same time, and I was glad I did,
since the first ends on a pretty major cliff-hanger. Meanwhile, the
third introduces Trixie’s older brothers Brian and Mart and includes the
formation of the Bob-Whites of the Glen, the club headed by
then-13-year-old sleuth Trixie Belden and her neighbor Jim Frayne, and
the fourth brings a sixth member, Di Wheeler, into the group. After
that, order isn’t quite so important, as events from one book rarely
carry over into the volume immediately following it. I was a little
surprised, then, to get warned off of reading the seventeenth book,
which is in my library system, before the sixteenth, which isn’t, but I
held off until I got my hands on the missing installment, and it was
worth it.
The Mystery of the Uninvited Guest brings back
several characters from the preceding novel, most notably Jim’s cousin
Juliana, whose August wedding among her new friends in Sleepyside, New
York, is the event around which most of the book revolves. The title
pulls double duty as it refers to both Miss Ryks, an elusive elderly
woman who wrangles her way into an invitation by claiming a close
connection to Juliana and her fiancé Hans, and Hallie Belden, the spunky
cousin who arrives at Crabapple Farm for an extended visit, much to
Trixie’s aggravation. While Miss Ryks is one of the key players in the
mystery, Hallie becomes a shadow detective, often adding valuable
suggestions that aid Trixie and her gentle best friend Honey Wheeler in
their investigation.
Hallie’s presence helps to make this one of
the most introspective books in the series thus far as Trixie is forced
to examine her attitudes about her younger cousin and contemplate the
ways in which both of them have grown up recently. “It’s hard being a
teen-ager, isn’t it?” she confesses at one point during a fairly deep
discussion, and I suspect that most of those who have navigated the
rocky roads of adolescence could agree with that. While Trixie’s
argumentative nature in the first few chapters is a bit grating, it
allows for growth later on as she allows herself to make a fresh start
with Hallie, leaving old squabbles in the past.
Ultimately, I
think the dynamic between these two may be my favorite element of the
book, though I also love being able to see them participate in an
intimate outdoor wedding, a lovely ceremony that reminds me of the
golden nuptials that precede the chaos and darkness marking most of the
final Harry Potter book. It’s fun to watch the girls help with the
preparations, enlisting the aid of both kindly Dutch widow Mrs.
Vanderpoel and practical Miss Trask, who helps run the Wheeler estate.
The elegant simplicity of the wedding and the obvious affection the
bride and groom have for each other casts a warm glow over the whole
book, particularly for those who got to know Juliana over the course of
the previous volume.
But all is not happiness and light here.
Curious circumstances begin piling up, reaching a crisis point when
Juliana’s ring vanishes and Dan Mangan, the seventh Bob-White,
disappears shortly thereafter. Dan often takes a backseat, so it’s nice
to see him so integral to the action here, even if he does spend several
chapters missing. Meanwhile, Trixie’s mischievous little brother Bobby
gets caught up in the mystery as well, becoming a more centric character
than he usually is. In fact, he has a bigger role to play here than the
older Belden boys, though they maintain a prominent presence, as does
Di, whose family suffers a shocking blow toward the beginning of the
book that helps set the mystery into motion.
While Uninvited Guest is clearly a sequel to The Mystery of the Missing Heiress,
the writing style is very different. Instead of being dialogue-heavy,
this book is more focused on narration, and there’s an artistic flourish
to the descriptions that impressed me. This particular ghostwriter has a
knack for metaphors and for finding new ways of expressing ideas that
are present throughout the series. For example, she makes several
comparisons between Trixie’s brain and a computer, a tribute to her
tendency to process information quickly and make great mental leaps.
Additionally, while I’m not sure if this was intentional, I like the
fact that in a book in which a wedding is the focal point, the hotel
room around which much of the mystery centers is number 214, as in
Valentine’s Day.
I wouldn’t exactly call the ending of the
sixteenth book a cliffhanger, but it does set readers up for the idea of
Trixie and the rest of the Bob-Whites participating in a summer
wedding, and I’m glad that whoever was in charge of these decisions felt
that this event merited a book of its own. The mystery is intriguing,
particularly Dan and Bobby’s roles in the strange events that unfold,
but it’s the changing relationship between Trixie and Hallie, a great
new character in her own right, and the joint effort to prepare a
beautiful wedding for a deserving couple that made Uninvited Guest such an enjoyable read with which to begin the month of August.
No comments:
Post a Comment