MYSTERIES   

J BR - Brookins, Dana. Who Killed Sack Annie? Clarion Books, 1983. 150p. Gr. 4-6

It's horrible enough seeing an innocent old bag lady being strangled in a lonely alley, but what's even worse, David Botts,
discovers, is finding out that the most likely suspect isy ur sister's new boyfriend...

J BY - Byars, Betsy. The Herculeah Jones Mystery Series. Viking. Dead Letter. 1996. 147p. Gr.4-6

When Herculeah finds a desperate-sounding letter in the lining of a second-hand coat she has just bought, she begins
to unravel a mystery that could turn deadly!

J DE - DeFelice, Cynthia. The Light on Hogback Hill. Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993. 139p. Gr.4-5

Standing at her bedroom window every night, Hadley Patterson sees a light high up on deserted Hogback Hill,
and she is beginning to wonder if the terrifying old hunchbacked hag who is supposed to live there could possibly be real...

J GI -  Giff, Patricia Reilly. Loretta P. Sweeny, Where Are You? Delacorte Press, 1983. 129p. Gr.4-5

Summer gets entertainingly complicated when Abby Jones finds a purple wallet containing - could it be?
The deadly plans of a murderer?

J HI -  Hightower, Florence. The Secret of the Crazy Quilt. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 1972. 232p. Gr. 5 and up

Full of the flavor of the 1920's in coastal Massachusetts, his mystery has everything: local color, romance,
rum-runners and even an old quilt that holds a terrible secret.

J HO - Howe, James. The Sebastian Porth Mystery Series. Atheneum. Stage Fright. 1986. 146p. Gr.4-6

Someone has begun sending ominous gifts to famous acress Michaele Caraway, and it's up to teenage sleuth
Sebastian Barth to find out who it is.

     - Howe, James. The Sebastian Porth Mystery Series. Atheneum. What Eric Knew. 1985. 138p. Gr.4-6

Sebastian's friend, Eric Mather, begain acting strange some time before he moved away, and now he's sending
Sebastian cryptic messages about a mystery that may involve a ghost...

J JO - Joosse, Barbara M. Theh Wild Willie Mystery Series. Clarion Books. Ghost Trap. 1998. 67p. Gr.3

Enhanced by Sue Truesdell's droll, cartoon-y illustrations, this is the very funny story of how a haunted house
helps Willie, Kyle, and Lucy discover that it's possible to be "best friends" with  more than one person at a time.

J KO -  Konigsburg, E.L. From the Mixed-Up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Atheneum, 1985. 162p. Gr.5 and up

Claudia Kincaid is very good at planning things, and when she decides to run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
with her brother, she leaves absolutely nothing to chance. But even Claudia doesn't plan to get caught up in a mystery
involving a priceless work of art...

J LE - Levy, Elizabeth. The Brain and Pea Brain Mystery Series. HarperCollins-Publishers. School Spirit Sabotage. 1994. 88p. Gr.3

Brian Casanova is a serious-minded second grader who thinks that School Spirit Week is pretty silly, but when s
omeone sabotages the event with a series of nasty pranks, he is determined to find out who it is.

J LE -  Levy, Elizabeth. The Shadow Nose. William Morrow and Company, 1983. 55p. Gr.3

An anonymous artist has been painting clever shadow pictures of Lamont's neighbors - and of Lamont himself -
all around his Greenwich Village neighborhood. It seems like a good joke at first, until the subjects of the paintings
begin receiving threatening notes...

J MY - Myers, Walter Dean. Smiffy Blue. Scholastic Inc., 1996. 74p. Gr.3

Four tongue-in-cheek tales featuring Smiffy blue, the "ace crime detective" who gets the clues side-splittingly wrong
every time and still always manages to crack the case.

J NA -  Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. The Bodies in the Besseldorf Hotel. Atheneum, 1986. 132p. Gr.4-6

Far too many dead bodies have been popping up at the Besseldorf Hotel Lately, and if Bernie Magruder wants his poor,
unlucky dad to remain the hotel's manager, he had better find out what is going on...

J NI - Nixon, Joan Lowery. The Casebusters Mystery Series. Disney Press. The Statue Walks at Midnight. 1995. 92p. Gr.3-4

When two sketches by Leonardo da Vinci are stolen from a local museum just days before the exhibit featuring them
is due to open, Brian and Sean Quinn decide to help their private investigator dad track down the culprit.

J RO -  Roberts, Willo Davis. Twisted Summer. Atheneum, 1996. 156p. Gr.5 and up

Flirtatious Zoe Cyrek has been murdered by someone in the sumer colony at Crystal Lake, but Cici Linden is sure
that it couldn't have been the brother of the boy she loves, and she's determined to prove it.