School Library Journal
Gr 5-8- Retirement mecca St. Petersburg provides the perfect backdrop for Abbot's mystery. Jason, 13, flies down to Florida to help his dad settle his grandmother's estate. Worried about his parents' marriage and disgusted with the heat and totally bored, he is intrigued when he finds an old postcard of his grandmother's. A hotel on it is the same one that appears in a mystery in an old magazine that he also finds in her house. The stories star someone called Marnie, a name that the funeral director calls Jason's grandmother, Agnes. Jason suspects that it wasn't a slip of the tongue after all, and that the tales really feature his grandmother. A mysterious phone call leads the teen and his new friend Dia to follow a trail of vintage postcards through local landmarks. Abbott's gift for creating complicated, realistic young characters is evident in Jason, but he is joined by stock characters from the pages of an old gumshoe mystery. The contrast between Jason's real adolescent angst and the clichéd mystery woven throughout makes each element seem richer. The surprise ending to the mystery and the not-so-surprising ending to Jason's real-life drama are quite satisfying. While less-sophisticated readers might be confused by the scene switches caused by the story-within-a-story format, many will enjoy this novel.-Nicki Clausen-Grace, Carillon Elementary School, Oviedo, FL
Kirkus Reviews
Thirteen-year-old Jason fears his parents are breaking up. When his estranged (and strange) grandmother passes away in Florida, his possibly alcoholic father goes down to take care of her estate; Jason worries that means his father is moving out. Jason goes to Florida to attend the funeral as well as to keep an eye on dad. In his grandmother's things, Jason finds a magazine containing a pulp-noir story that seems to be about his grandmother and great-grandfather, one of the original Florida land barons. He also finds a mysterious postcard that hints at the location of further installments of the story. With the help of local teen Dia, Jason uncovers the solution to a family mystery that just may save his father. Author of the endless Secrets of Droon series, Abbott has created a silly, overlong mystery full of conclusion-jumping and nonsensical clues. The characters are annoying (even to each other) and the supposedly compelling mystery Jason finds is a florid, turgid mess. (Fiction. 11-13)
OCT/NOV 08 - AudioFile
Tweens and their parents or grandparents may find this mystery ideal for shared listening. Narrator Lincoln Hoppe nimbly portrays a dichotomy of characters: a teen protagonist with stereotypical 21st-century angst and pulp villains straight out of the 1940s. Hoppe's portrayal of 13-year-old Jason reveals his boredom with being stuck in blue-haired St. Petersburg, Florida, where he’s helping his dad settle his grandmother's estate. Hoppe conveys Jason's begrudging interest when he discovers that perhaps Grandma was not only young once, she was also entwined in an exciting mystery. With his new friend, Dia, Jason follows a trail of vintage postcards with the tenacity of a gumshoe detective. Hoppe's well-paced, realistic dialogue adds credibility to the story's adults, especially Jason's stressed-out father. N.M.C. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
