I had first heard of Janet Lennon through her book Janet Lennon at Camp Calamity. I didn't know who she was but the book explains she's a singer. That's all I knew at the time so I was very surprised to see a book with four Lennon girls and to find Janet to be the youngest. Before giving this book a re-reading I looked up Janet Lennon online and was even more surprised to find that, at the time of this writing, the Lennon Sisters are still performing. That's going to make it very fun reading about these girls who are actual people and still together as "the Lennon Sisters".
I've read this book once before and I only remember two things about it; some combination of a cave along the waterfront, Janet, a strange boy, and them running over the lawn at night while stopping the bad guys.
Mr. Lennon has received a telegram from a real estate agent offering him a rent-free summer at a ranch on Holiday Island. The ranch belongs to David Gardner but he has not lived in it since the passing of his wife and four-year-old son in a boat wreck over a decade ago. If the Lennon's like the place he will sell it to them at a low price. The only condition is they must keep the caretaker Ben Taggart on.
They take the offer and Mr. Lennon heads out to the island with Diane, Peggy, Kathy, and Janet.
Once there they find the big, beautiful house still boarded up and dusty, apparently Mr. Taggart did not bother to get the place ready. The girls clean it up and all agree it seems like a mighty fine place to spend the summer (why did I just say "mighty fine"? The Lennon wholesomeness must be rubbing off on me).
That night Janet runs into Peggy's room during a thunderstorm insisting that she heard voices outside her second floor window. Peggy tells her she was imagining it but when she goes to Janet's room to shut the windows for the night she too hears it. The next day she discusses it with her father who reasons the voices were probably coming from Taggart's two way radio. However we soon learn that the radio is broken and Taggart is awfully worried about it. He is expecting a message from Don Luis about a ship that is looking to pick up some illegal cargo in a few days. He's already stressed about the Lennons being there but even more stressed now that he doesn't know when the ship will be arriving.
The Lennon's decide they will remain for the summer so Mr. Lennon heads back home to pick up the rest of the family (there was 11 Lennon kids, don'tcha know). Taggart takes him to the airport and while in town he reports to Chris Lugo who he is working for. Lugo is evil and cruel and Taggart fears him. Lugo talks about how he is suppose to be watching his cousin's son, Juan, while the father is in Mexico but after he beat him Juan ran away. Lugo, worried Juan knows what they're up to, made a false police report saying Juan stole from his cash register and he plans on beating him more when he gets him back.
Taggart hopes that he can scare the girls into remaining inside at night so they don't see his criminal dealings but the girls prove hard to scare. He fakes a loose mountain lion but the girls quickly learn they've been deceived and ignore it. Next he tries to scare them by giving one of the girls a "close call".
While Janet is fishing off the edge of the pier he suggests she go to the end of a large path of boulders out to sea. She gets trapped when the tide comes in and is soon washed out into the water. Taggart has removed a board from the rowboat so it can't be used for rescue so Diane has to dive in to try and save Janet. By the time she reaches where Janet was she's no longer there and after more searching the girls come to the conclusion that Janet has drown.
Of course Janet didn't actually drown, she was just swept further down the shore and, as she grows weak, is rescued by Juan who has been hiding out in the area. He tows Janet into a seafront cave to recover, introduces her to his talking parrot who is the answer to the voices outside Janet window, and shows her a secret underground passage to get out of the cave and back home. He also tells Janet she can not reveal who saved her and to just say someone named John Smith saved her. She goes home and the girls are relieved to see her. Diane feels something is strange about this John Smith but they're too grateful to care much. Upon hearing the story Taggart immediately knows John Smith is actually Juan and decides to find him and turn him over to Lugo.
The next day Janet and Peggy go up a hill and overlook the cliff onto a cove at the same time that Don Luis shows up with the ship. The ship is disguised as a motion picture outfit shooting on location. Janet wants to go down to the beach to watch but Taggart scares the girls off by causing a wild bull stampede.
As the girls head back to the house Kathy joins them and then all three come across Juan. Kathy and Juan seem smitten with each other and the girls suggest he spend the night in the nearby storage cabin until their father arrives the next day and can help him. When Juan goes to check out the cabin he finds Taggart and Don Louis inside examine boxes of advanced weaponry, Lugo soon joins them. Juan overhears enough to learn the men are selling weapons to an undisclosed countries revolutionaries. He tells Janet this info when she brings him food that night but Diane has already been telling the girls Juan has probably been making up stories and this convinces Janet. He tells Janet he will prove it by retrieving a gun from the cabin. When Janet goes back to the house after he leaves she confronts Taggart in front of the other girls. Taggart says the guns are props for the movie being shot but quickly heads to the cabin and catches Juan and tie him up inside.
The girls think it over and decide to call the police but find the phone lines have been cut. Diane goes outside to examine the wires but Taggart tries to run her down in his car and she barely makes it inside when he backs up to try again.
Soon a tipsy man comes knocking on the house door and warns the girls they'll be safe as long as they stay inside until morning but if they get caught outside some of the other men might harm them. They decide they have to go to the cabin to grab evidence so they can tell the police the next morning.
Peggy and Kathy create a diversion at an upstairs window while Dianne and Janet sneak out of the house. Once they get to the cabin they see the men moving the boxes of weapons and are able to sneak in and free Juan. They all run to Taggart's car but find he's taken the keys with him so the just release the air from a tire.
Not much later they are able to steal Lugo's car while he is distracted by Juan's bird. The men fire at them but Diane drives the car at a crazy speed towards town. They run out of gas several miles away and begin to walk when Jim West, the co-pilot from their flight to the island, drives by. It's now early morning and he's on his way to work.
After hearing the trios story he takes them to the coast guard where they tell the story again. Afterwards they go to town and are about to start walking home when Peggy and Kathy pull up in Taggart's car, still with a flat tire. The five stay there until the rest of the family soon shows up on the boat. The coast guard also shows up with the criminals in tow.
On the way back to the house Dianne tells Mr. Lennon about Juan's rescue of Janet and Mr. Lennon decides he would like to pay for Juan to go to school and college as a thank you. Mr. Lennon needs to run it by Juan's father, Bernardo, first but Juan does not know how to reach his father in Mexico. He suggests Padre Antonio at the church might since he is friends with Bernardo. Mr. Lennon goes there and is told that the padre had received a letter from Bernardo yesterday saying he is not Juan's real father and that he has married a Mexican women with children and does not plan on returning to claim Juan.
Mr. Lennon asks padre Antonio to come by the house the following day to tell Juan this. Upon hearing this Mrs. Lennon wants to adopt Juan into their large family and this seems like a fine solution until some startling facts surface the next day.
David Gardner has arrived on the island to get things signed over for the Lennon's and while there he witness Juan access a hidden compartment on his desk and pull out a toy that belonged to Gardner's deceased son. Juan knows the name of the toy and from there it becomes clear that Juan Lopez is actually Johnny Gardner, the son formally thought drowned in the boating accident. The Lennons soon depart so the father and son can restart their lives together.
- Mr. Lennon isn't very smart to leave his 4 famous daughters alone with a strange man.
- Juan's bird kind of disappears from the story which I don't really like.
- Ages aren't really mentioned in this book which kind of sucks. I'm not sure if Janet was suppose to be 7? 13? somewhere in between? Same with the other girls.
- Bernardo abandoning Juan is not seen as bad since he's not his "real" father but he's raised him since he was 4 so that'd be pretty traumatic. Also why did he not find Juan's family? His father would have been hopeful and looking I'm sure.
Overall this book was okay. It had less excitement than I remembered but there was still some. Some parts do feel boring and dragged out, I'm not sure a child would get through it too easily, it just feels very long. But all in all it's not bad and I think it must have been fun for the family to have a book like this written which includes not just the sisters but the whole family.
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