Book 20 - The Mystery Off Old Telegraph Road

From the back of the book - "Trixie walked over to her best friend and grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing Honey to look at her. "What is it, Honey?" she asked. "What happened?". "Oh, Trixie," Honey wailed, "I just got the most horrible phone call. H-He said I should call off the bikeathon. He - he said if I didn't - if the bikeathon went on as scheduled next Saturday - that something awful would happen. 'You can be sure of it,'he said..."





Trixie and Honey attend their schools art fair and see how underfunded the art department is. The Bob-Whites decide to do something about it and hold a bikeathon through the Wheeler game preserve to raise funds. Nothing about that seems too mysterious but Ben Riker (Honeys cousin) is back in town and this time he's hanging out with a bad crowd. Then there's Nick Roberts, an art student who should be happy about the bikeathon but isn't, he even rips down one of the posters for it! Add to that the fact Trixie is out scouting the route the bikeathon will follow when she discovers some foreign currency that turns out to be counterfeit and things are looking like starting another mystery for the Belden-Wheeler detective agency. And then Di's bike tires get slashed and Honey receives a threatening phone call and so does Mrs Vanderpoel (who has volunteered her yard as a pit stop for the bikeathon) and it looks like the bikeathon may be called off!

Of course the bikeathon goes ahead, the counterfeiters are caught and everyone has a happy ending, after Trixie puts herself in danger once again :)

I'm a bit up in the air about this book. While it has the makings of a fun mystery there's a few things that detract from it in various ways.

Ben Rikers reappearance annoyed me. I'm not sure what his purpose in this book is, other than maybe the author wanted to bring him in as a new regular or maybe even a new Bob-White. They TRY to make him a red herring about the counterfeiting with his "forgery" of the arrows but seriously, as if anyone really thought he had anything to do with the real criminals. He served no REAL purpose.

Of course, talking of Ben, we have to mention Trixie and Honey's fight, as Ben was really the cause. While I really felt bad for Trix when she and Honey fought the whole thing felt forced (maybe to try justify Bens appearance) and like it was just there to add a bit of angsty drama to the mix. They make up much too quickly for me, it could've been an interesting subplot but just becomes another distraction in a book with too many already.

Then there's the silk screening. There's a couple pages devoted to silk screening out of no where. It's almost like the author sold some advertising to a silk screening company or was trying to make the readers interested in doing some silk screening, it was just bizarre.

Of course there was plenty of stuff I did like :). Marts attitude to Trix this time around showed just how loyal and loving he is when it comes to his "almost twin". Marts feelings for Di are mentioned once again (yay) as are Jims and Trixies for each other.

All in all I guess I'd have to say this book is about average, it's fun and all but just not brilliant but I did enjoy it :)

Next up is Castaway Children, another of my favorites, where the Bob-Whites find an abandoned baby in Reddys doghouse. See you here when I finish it.