Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Judy Bolton #33, The Secret Quest


Confession: I'm not really into the later Judy Bolton books, even though it's probably my favorite series ever. Unfortunate, considering you have to donate a kidney to get some of these higher numbers. Or in my case, about six months and $50 for a copy with a frankly crappy dust jacket.

Peter and Judy are still living at the hotel in D.C., just having wrapped up The Whispered Watchword. Sister Honey has just come in for a week of sight-seeing, but series plot stereotype #422 Unintentional Exchange of Suitcases (perhaps most memorably deployed in The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk) occurs. Naturally, the suitcase belongs to the two anachronistic old aunties Jewell, who have their nephew's top secret scientific papers stuffed in an antique coffee grinder. Could it be anything else?

Of course, they're unable to get in touch with these ladies, although they meet the nephew, whom Honey falls for immediately. Honey also wants to get back to Farringdon because some suspicious character is now working at the design place and interfering with her job. So, J+H bail on D.C. after a couple of days, head back, Horace is horribly jealous of nephew and has been beaten up by unnamed other suspcioius character (UOSC), and Judy and Honey head out to the isolated farm of the two sisters Jewell.

Once there, the pace escalates dramatically. UOSC (spoiler!) is posing as the nephew and playing poltergeist. Of course, Judy immediately recognizes him as being an escaped prisoner on the FBI's most wanted list. They organize a daring escape to telephone for help, but are chased by UOSC , who breaks his leg and nearly drowns in the process. He also has a name at this point, but frankly I don't recall it. Dr. Bolton and Horace arrive in the nick of time, and everything is put to rights. Speaking of which, as much as I love this series, it does annoy me a bit that Judy is forever having to get rescued, although it's usually by Peter.

The book ends with Horace and Honey reunited (I hate that they never get married, but Margaret Sutton was also upset by this when the series was axed abruptly), and Judy and Peter moving back to Dry Brook Hollow, so that Peter can round up the rest of the gang.


  • Fashion is minimal in this book, which is pretty typical of Sutton (I think we'll call her Margie, that seems pleasantly familiar). The two sisters wear "quaint" gingham dresses and sunbonnets. Honey is pissed about the suitcase exchange, because she has semi-matching suits and pillbox hats for her and Judy, with fabric she's designed. Speaking of pillbox hats, there's a subtle shout-out to Jackie O: when they see the President in a chauffered limo, they're taken aback by the beauty of the First Lady.

  • Blackberry the cat does feature in this book: he finishes his tenure as a rat-catcher for the Capitol, he almost gets stuck in a cannon, and he goes for help at the end.

  • I do like the Honey/Horace in this book. They're two of my favorite secondary series characters.

  • They go to church in Washington, and one of the readings is Akhenaten's hymn to the sun. I'd like to go to THAT church.

With the awkward pacing (seriously, the events in the 4th paragraph take place over a few hours at most) and flat characters, not my favorite Judy book. What is? Probably The Vanishing Shadow, The Haunted Attic, or Seven Strange Clues. I'm a 30s girl at heart. I'm not optimistic for #34, but at least I have it. After that, I've got nada until #38.

1 comment:

  1. THank you soo much! I've been reading Judy Boltons on google books, but half teh series is not there so I have all tehse gaps in my knowledge.

    ReplyDelete

 
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