The Master Detective Handbook: Help Our Detectives Use Gadgets & Super Sleuthing Skills to Solve the Mystery & Catch the Crooks »

What does it take to solve a crime? Inquiring kids want to know, so the super-sleuths at the Pinkerton Detective Agency have invited detectives-in-training to join them in unraveling a mystery. Along with the great story comes plenty of interesting projects, activities, and tasks. Imaginative watercolor illustrations feature visual clues just waiting to be found. Coded messages require deciphering. And to do their part, readers can start a case file, complete with paperwork, photos, a crime scene sketch, and other pertinent details.

Children's Literature

Combining a nice touch of humor with lots of hands-on activities and a mildly interesting plot, this book will help middle school students hone their detective skills. "Pink" Pinkerton, a descendant of the founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and her "brainy" friends Sherman Homes and Mike Hu, join forces to determine why high school student and experienced computer hacker Hack has disappeared—along with all of the students' grades that were stored in the school computer. Readers will learn how to decipher codes, dust for and retrieve fingerprints (with face powder and cocoa), create a jacket to conceal detective tools (but will their parents mind that they are told to cut a hole in the front of the jacket for a camera lens to peek through?), investigate spatter evidence, and a variety of other tricks of the trade. Hidden messages, codes, and sly allusions to classic detective stories abound as the threesome cleverly locate and decipher the trail of clues. The book includes Pink's detective manual and a nice list of the "Essential Detecting Library" that features authors such as Dashiell Hammett, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy Sayers that young readers might never have "detected" on their own. It also includes a table of contents and an index. Young detectives are sure to find this book amusing, and its unusual format might appeal to reluctant readers. Reviewer: Leslie Rounds