"There is no doubt about it, two of the four silver candlesticks were gone! Yet Ginny Gordon was sure she had locked the door before she left the swap shop. Anyway who would have wanted those tarnished candlesticks? And why had they only taken two of the four?
The business of clearing up the mystery of the missing candlesticks, and at the same time running the Swap Shop, keeps every member of the Hustlers' club busy, for in solving one mystery another is turned up."
This is the first book in the Whitman series, Ginny Gordon. Although well written this series would become overshadowed by the author's other series, Trixie Belden. There are many similarities between Ginny Gordon and Trixie Belden including recycled plot points and scenes. I've read the series once but don't remember too much from it so lets see how this re-reading goes.
- The book starts out with Ginny sharing her plans for the Swap Shop. Her and her club, the Hustlers, plan on renting a little shop for $15 a month, collecting broken and/or unwanted items from people in the neighborhood in exchange for store credit, and fixing and selling the items. Pretty much it's a thrift store and I think it's a great idea.
- At the beginning of the book we also hear about Ginny's failed attempt to solve a mystery; she had previously thought a citizen was a German spy with plans to blow up the local bank. Turns out he was just an accountant. It's nice to see one of these teen amateur detectives be wrong. I wonder how many mysteries Nancy Drew stumbled on to that weren't actually mysteries.
- Ginny is 14 but already has enough accounting education from school to handle "the books". She goes all into accounts receivable/accounts payable stuff that I have no clue about. Did they actually teach this kind of stuff in school back then cause that'd be cool.
- Ginny immediately takes a strong disliking to Mr. Grinsler, an antique seller who asks the Swap Shop to give him leads to antiques in exchange for a commission. When Lucy asks why she instantly dislikes him Ginny says she can't stand his lisp;
"She pirouetted around the room, taking little mincing steps and imitating Mr. Grinsler's speech: "Mike hath given me permithin to ficth my mealth on an elecricth plath....Phooey!""
She also calls him a sissy for cooking his own food instead of going out to eat. I don't know if there's supposed to be a subtext here. Maybe it's because I've been reading some old Nancy Drew books where the villain is always Jewish/Romani/Italian/etc. These books come from a different time so why wouldn't a villain be made gay. Anyways I think Ginny's dislike is supposed to be taken as her 6th sense telling her the guy is bad news but it just comes off prejudice.
- At one point Babs gets accidentally locked in an old wardrobe and almost suffocates to death. She's in there for hours until Ginny finally finds her. Later when Ginny thinks that Babs has ditched helping her at the Swap Shop to go to a movie Ginny thinks to herself that she wishes she had left Babs in the wardrobe to suffocate to death. Kind of extreme don't cha think?
- When Ginny realizes there's a secret entrance hidden somewhere in the Swap Shop she starts searching the showroom instead of the office even though all the clues she found were in the office. This was just a ploy to make her find it later in the evening for plot reasons and so obvious it was annoying.
- The ending involves all the characters going to a movie, Ginny goes alone to the Swap Shop where she ends up alone with the villain until one of her gang happens to show up because he became suspicious. This same setup was used again by Julie Campbell a few years later for Trixie Belden and the Gatehouse Mystery.
- When Ginny starts noticing the trap door coming up I don't know why she doesn't jump on top of it. It was right in front of the desk so why not step on top and pull the desk over it trapping Grinsler until she gets help.
Overall this book is entertaining and the pace is excellent. That's one thing I enjoy about Julie Campbell's books for Whitman; there's so much packed into one book but it doesn't feel too fast paced.
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