Mary Lou #3, The Mystery of the Secret Band

Of all the Mary Lou books, this one had the most original plot. Mary Lou is asked by her father to stay at a guest house in Philadelphia and help the manager discover who has been stealing from the residents. Her side project is to find Margaret Detweiler, a local girl who has disappeared. Of course, the two cases end up being related.

Mary Lou poses as a guest of Mrs. Hilliard, the manager. She gets to know most of the guests and suspects several of them (an old maid who felt she should have inherited the house, the daughter of another guest, who elopes with her young man) before she moves on to the real suspect: a girl calling herself Pauline Brooks. ML realizes her mistake when she sees Pauline with another girl, Miss Jackson, and another guest id's Miss Jackson as the servant who cut out after two of the earlier thefts. ML realizes that there's a "secret band" of thieves working together to rob hotels.

Her search for Margaret Detweiler turns up that the girl was fired for theft from the store where she was working. Margaret was then offered a job by a mysterious Mrs. Ferguson, who witnessed the discovery of the theft. Of course, it turns out that Fergie is the head of the secret band (she planted the stolen item on Margaret), and Margaret is too good a girl to steal--she only stays with the loot, "under duress."

In the end, ML calls her dad to come help, and he's able to get everyone arrested, while ML drives out to the abandoned house to find the loot. She gets locked/boarded into the house by the local guy keeping watch. Mrs. Hilliard realizes something is wrong when ML doesn't come home that night and alerts Detective Gay. They come to the rescue and release her, arresting the watch guy, and finding Margaret in the process. They take all the loot back to the rooming house and distribute it to the residents, making a Merry Christmas for all.

• Max is ridiculously upset about ML leaving over Christmas, because she's going to miss some important dance, and he's the class president. He then shows up in Philadelphia for a couple of days to surprise her (sweet, because she's homesick) and proposes a secret elopement (creepy). What does he think they're going to do, find a JotP, tie the knot, consummate the marriage in the back of his roundabout, then reveal everything on graduation? Yeah, actually just that. Well, the roundabout is implied. ML is appropriately horrified. How Beverly Gray of her.
  
• In case you didn't figure it out, the previous two books took place over the summer between junior and senior years, and this book takes place over winter break of their senior year. ML is still 16 until spring.
• The secret band? Wasn't the word "gang" in use by this point?
• You know immediately that Pauline is going to be a bad guy because she's wearing "too much lipstick." If she were okay, it would have just been "bright" or "a lot."
• Illegal activity for this book: when ML gets trapped in the house, it's because she BROKE IN a window, then the guy covers it up when he notices it. It's not an intentional entrapment.
• Nothing happens to Margaret, even though she's been consorting with thieves for almost an entire year. I know she's supposedly coerced, but you think she could have told SOMEONE, if she's really so innocent.
• Pauline and the other girls disguise themselves as drunk men to get in people's rooms. I was kind of surprised by the mention of drunkenness/portrayal of drunken behavior. I did check; Prohibition was repealed in 1933, so it wasn't actually illegal, though.
• ML has a squirrel coat. And goloshes. And fashionable long snow pants.
• The Philadelphia thing pretty much confirms the Pennsylvania location for the first book/Mary Lou's hometown, Riverside.
  
• Edie does this in the other two books, but it's at its most annoying here: the upfront foreshadowing. Seriously, the end of every chapter is some variation on this: "Little did she realize at that moment how thankful she was to be . . . " Constantly. SHOW me, don't TELL me, Edie. Take me by surprise for once.
  
• Unlike some other breeder sets or canceled series, it doesn't hint at any ghost titles in the end. It actually ends in such a way to finish the series pretty satisfactorily, really.
• I love quaint inscriptions and bookplates. It's odd that this was owned by a boy, but I love he put that he was junior varsity, first team.

So, this series wasn't too bad. Lots of good fashion, very 30s, a little romance, three very different mysteries and settings, great cover art. My biggest complaint with the series is that I feel the secondary characters are lacking. They're either good or bad, without any real personality traits. These books totally need a Chubs. They're also not very gripping. It's not like the early Beverly Gray or Judy Bolton books, where I'm completely absorbed and have to finish and then read the next one, etc. I will say they're ahead of the times as far as being mystery-focused and stand-alone.

What's next? Shirley Flight, maybe? I did get inspired by aviation memorabilia on Antiques Roadshow this week. Speaking of which, I just love it when people are overwhelmed and cry on that show. Especially old ladies.

Mary Lou #2, The Mystery of the Fires

Well, thankfully, I quite liked this book, which gives me hope for the final volume, The Mystery of the Secret Band. It reminded me a lot of the Kay Tracey book, The Message in the Sand Dunes, with traces of Doris Force at Cloudy Cove. In other words, the basic idea of being on vacation at a beach cottage and being all chummy with the vacationers at other cottages.

ML, her mother, Freckles, and Jane are off to their cottage at Shady Nook (which there's a convenient map of in the front) for the summer. Sticking with the pattern of the last book, ML's dad is off on a case and doesn't show up until the final chapters. When they arrive, they're told that their friends' (the Hunters) cabin burned down last week, and arson is suspected. The main suspects are Cliff, who technically owns the cabin since his dad died and needs the insurance money, and Ditmar, an out of work architect, who needs the contract for the rebuild. Soon though, Flicks' cabin and inn/restaurant is torched, as well as the Smiths' house. David McCall, who is way unreciprocatedly into ML, manages to get Cliff arrested. Another suspect, Rebecca Adams, who is certifiably crazy, crops up.

In the end, ML figures out it's Mr. Frazier, whose overpriced inn is benefitting from the closure of the cabins and the rival inn, with the paid help of Rebecca's brother, Tom. Tom and Frazier catch ML eavesdropping and manage to get her committed by pretending that ML is actually Rebecca. In the end, ML manages to signal Norman and Max, who are out looking for her in their car. Tom and Frazier get arrested, and Cliff gets released.

• Cliff is described as "homely," but very personable and a good guy. He's known for his card tricks. I like the break from the typical gorgeous athlete type. He and Jane have a sort-of-romance.
• The mental institution bit is seriously scary. Every time ML tries to tell them who she is, they think it's part of her illness.
  
• The institution is described as a pretty nice place of its type (which is definitely unrealistic for the time), and Rebecca decides to go live there voluntarily.
• ML follows the Nancy Drew mold by not being super interested in any of the boys who are obsessed with her, even though she's grateful to Max for rescuing her.
• ML rescues the Smiths' little girl from the fire, in series stereotype #322.
• ML's dad seriously does nothing. He helps get the bad guys arrested, AFTER ML figures out who they are, and the boys rescue her.
• ML is supposed to be 16, and David McCall is 22. Rather icky, no? Cliff is around 19(sophomore at Yale), ftr.
• ML knows how to signal because she's a Girl Scout, which is also mentioned in the previous book (she uses it as a reason to not get rewards for good deeds). I don't really like these references, even though it's not surprising, since Edie was a troop leader. ML's just too old and not that much of a goody-goody.
• As you can see in the map, Shady Nook is on the Hudson. Adirondacks, possibly? It takes them a full day to drive there, so that would be in keeping with a Pennsylvania locale.
  

So again, Edie gets points for scary situations, and I like Jane's character a bit more after this book, even though she's still a little bland. I'm optimistic for the next (and final) book, The Mystery of the Secret Band, which seems like it will actually involved her father and yet another setting (urban).

Mary Lou #1, The Mystery at Dark Cedars

The Mary Louise Gay books were originally published as a breeder set by A.L. Burt in 1935. They either never caught on, or Blue Ribbon Books chose not to continue the series when they bought out Burt in 1937. Edith Lavell wrote two other, probably more famous, series, the Linda Carlton series and one of the many Girl Scouts series. I've never read either, so I can't make any comparisons.

I had been warned in advance by Jennifer's description that Mary Louise is not exactly a law-abiding citizen. And, boy, was she right. Her m.o. seems to be, "As long as someone's guilty, you can do anything. ANYTHING." She's the daughter of a police detective, but neither he nor the police plays too much of a role. Her mother is very much of the, "Yes, dear," variety and is completely extraneous. She has a little brother known as Freckles (Joseph) and her best friend is named Jane. As far as I could tell, Jane's only personality traits are being less fearless than Mary Louise and more interested in boys.

Mary Louise has an eccentric miser of a neighbor, Miss Hattie, who lives at Dark Cedars, her decrepit mansion, with two simple-minded servants (Hannah and her husband) and her niece, whom she treats like a servant. It's this niece, Elsie, whom Mary Louise and Jane befriend and enter into the mystery. There are mysterious sounds at night, and then Miss Hattie's safe is burgled for gold and paper money. Elsie is the immediate suspect of everyone, but, a la Murder on the Orient Express, there are actually multiple culprits. In the end, Miss Hattie gets her money back, and Elsie is sent to live with a more sympathetic relative.

• The book's opinions of "colored" people and gypsies would not pass current muster. At one point, Mary Louise gets important testimony from a black woman, the wife of a deacon, and her father tells her that the word of a colored woman doesn't mean a thing. And he's clearly not talking about "to other people," he's saying she's not trustworthy.
• A lot of the book is based around Executive Order 6012, ordered by President Roosevelt to prevent the hoarding of gold during the Depression. It was illegal to own any gold coins, bullion, or certificates. So Miss Hattie's stash is illegal. Elsie is considered a likely thief, because she's thought to be too ignorant to know that she couldn't use the gold. In the end, the true thief of the gold is a gypsy, as gypsies only traded in gold and silver.
• Edie talks a lot about clothes. Mary Louise and Jane give Elsie some of their clothes, including a green print silk dress, a wooly white coat, and a pink lawn dress, along with several items of lingerie. Elsie's old clothes are a dated purple calico, and she's envious of Mary Louise and Jane's bob hairstyles.
• The most shockingly illegal events of the book? ML&J stash away in Miss Hattie's nephew Harry's roadster (shades of Nancy Drew and Beverly Gray), and, when he stops, take his locked leather satchel. ML then cuts it open with a pen knife--completely destroying the bag. Luckily for her, some of the stolen money is inside it. It wouldn't be that bad, but at this point ML has no reason to suspect Harry more than any of the other relatives, and Jane is extremely upset at the proceedings. ML tells her that they'll replace it--if he's innocent.
  
• They talk about being near Harrisburg. Pennsylvania, maybe?
• ML's "boy-friend" is Max, Jane's is Norman.
• At one point, ML is bound and thrown into Miss Hattie's closet, which was pretty scary, I have to say. Very Nancy Drew of her, too.
• ML's mom is way too trusting of her, clearly for no reason. I just think it's bizarre to have such a clearly Nancy Drew/Penny's Parker & Nichols character with a mother.

So, not bad, but not the greatest. In 3-book series, though, I almost always prefer either the first two (Arden Blake) or the last two (Adventure Girls), so hopefully this is a case of the latter. Next up, the second book, The Mystery of the Fires.

More eBay success

I have to say, one of the few good things about less traffic on eBay is that there's not NEARLY the competition that there used to be. Case in point: I paid close around $15-20 for the second and third books in the Mary Louise Gay series, and lost a few auctions that went for more. I've searched for over a year for a decent copy of the first book (and lost an auction or two that went higher than I wanted). A copy finally turned up this week, and I won it for only $7.99. I love the dust jacket art for this series, so I hope that the stories are equally good. Especially after all this time and effort.

So expect to be hearing about the adventures of Mary Lou in the coming weeks.