From the back of the book - "It was a small plot, enclosed by an ornate iron fence. The gate was ajar, and, going through it, Trixie and Jim saw rows of moss-covered headstones. In the rear was a small but impressive marble mausoleum. "Ooooh! Cemeteries give me the shivers!" Trixie exclaimed. A sudden clap of thunder made them both jump, and they hurried to the vault. By now the rain was teeming, and the inside of the mausoleum was pitch black, but at least they were out of the storm..."
The Bob-Whites are just back from their adventure on Cobbett's Island, they hadn't even had a chance to open up the club house since they've been back. Trixie is enlisted to help her mum clean out the attic and while up there she falls through a wall into a hidden crawl space. In the crawl space she finds a letter dated from before the civil war. Turns out Crabapple Farm was a part of the underground railroad, helping smuggle slaves out of the south into the more liberated north and this letter was carried here by one such (freed) slave.
The letter, of course, leads to a mystery for the Bob-Whites to get involved in. They want to find the hidden emerald necklace that the letter talks about. To do so they're all off to Virginia to search out the clues that have been left. Along the way they've got to thwart a greedy and cruel neighbour, help a crippled man and save a teenager from going down the wrong path.
Emeralds was great for a number of reasons but I loved that it was one of the "treasure hunt" kind of mysteries. Trixie and the rest follow a series of clues that lead from the crawl space in the attic, to Croton On Hudson (a town close to Sleepyside), to Virginia, a pair of mansions, one in ruins, a family cemetery and it's mausoleum and, eventually, an underground secret passage.
The bad stuff - Once again Dan gets neglected :( There's like maybe one or two sentences about him, they don't even call him when they're going to have a Bob-Whites meeting!! This time Di is shyDi and though the Bob-Whites wouldn't have gotten to go to Virginia without here and the fact that it's her birthday at the end of the book she gets no attention and is totally ignored by most of the other characters, poor Di. Brian manages to be a super doctor once again (it gets old when he's always saving the day and finding no broken bones and stuff), Mart's his typical mouthy, garbage guts self and Honey barely gets too much of a look in aside from being around with Trixie, sometimes. Jim saves the day as he's wont to do. Really, this one is one of the books that ignores most of the characters for most of the time.
Next up we're of for a mystery on the Mississippi. Which is one I don't remember at all.
Still very much enjoying your Blogs and keeping an eye out on Ebay for some of my very own TB's.
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