Mystery of the Vanishing Victim

I've been a bad fan lately. (BTW, you know you've been too obsessed with Narnia when you start to type "bad faun" instead!) I haven't fully read a Trixie in a while. Well, I read one, Mystery of the Vanishing Victim, #33, but before that, I hadn't read one in months. Sad. I like VV (That's my abbreviation, in case you didn't know.) It has a pretty realistic plot. Hit and Run? It's something that sadly happens all the time, and it made this book feel more real. I liked a lot of things about this book, including the contest and the antique show. The contest was fun, and unlike a certain other book (spoilers! Mystery of the Memorial Day Fire!) we actually find out who wins. It was nice to see the Lucy Radcliffe books again, and it brought continuity into the story. However, if you hadn't read Mystery of the Ghostly Galleon, it would totally ruin that book for you. And who likes that? So if you haven't read GG, or if you are just odd and don't mind mysteries being ruined for you, read this one later.

The main things I didn't like about this book were 1.) Bobby is regressing in his speech. Again. And 2.), the mystery in this one seems to be put on the back burner. For 1.), Bobby seems to be going back to more of the way he was in the earlier books. Upon opening a Trixie, I never seem to know what Bobby is going to be like. In some like Phantom Grasshopper or Uninvited Guest, he is surprisingly mature for his age. In this book though, he seemed to be back to his 4 or 5 year old self. One example is when he repeats himself and says things like "Trixie doesn't always do her best, and Mart doesn't always do his best, and Brian doesn't always do his best..." etc. My sister is around Bobby's age (7) and she never did anything like that that I can remember.

For 2.), I think that the mystery is not really the primary focus in this book. We don't get into the mystery until near the middle of the book. Up until then, we've learned some boring things about old cars, and spent some time talking to a mysterious stranger. But there's no real mystery. Then, even after the man has been hit, Trixie's on the case, but not as curious or persistent as she is in most of the books. There is a lot of time taken out of the book with the girls collecting donations, but it takes a lot of unnecessary time out of the book that could have been used on more things related to the mystery.

Overall, this is a good book. I liked the ending, and the Bobwhites are pretty in character. No major slipups like Regan being the Wheeler's chauffeur as far as I can remember. It's not in my top 10, but I still enjoy it.

Rachel