Why do mysteries attract so many readers?
Seriously.
Just like with romances and crack cocaine, some people just can’t get enough of this perennial best-selling genre.
(But of course mysteries are arguably much healthier overall than romances and crack cocaine…)
My theory?
- Mysteries address that deep human desire to see justice and fairness meted out to those who break the rules and hurt others.
- They entertain us with their puzzling nature and (if done well), satisfying reveals.
- They scratch that deep itch people have to learn new things, figure things out, and feel clever.
Whatever the case may be, a good mystery is not only a treat but fantastic material for aspiring writers (even non-explicitly-mystery-writers) to learn from.
Which is why I’m starting a project to deep-dive and analyze a top-notch middle-grade mystery series that features a high-top wearing, binocular-waving, plucky young sleuth living in a 90s small SoCal town with a cast of quirky, unique secondary characters and villains.
The Sammy Keyes series is awesome to learn from not only because the author knows how to plot a structurally sound mystery (and has done it 18 times in this series alone), but also create loveable characters, flesh out realistic settings, deftly combine fun subplots in a satisfying way, and write stories readers WANT to read.
If that’s your goal, too, take a look…
Who this book is for: Middle grade mystery fans and aspiring authors, anyone who would like a story told by a spunky teen sleuth from the 90s with a big heart and a fun narrative voice.
Scylighter rating: 4.67/6 ⭐s (explanation of ratings at the end)
BOOK NOTES
Prologue
In This Chapter
- Sammy kicks off the whole plot by accidentally seeing something she shouldn’t have.
Main character Sammy begins by saying that her grandmother (Grams) told her that her binoculars were going to get her in trouble.
Sammy didn’t believe her, because Grams has always been a worrier.
But turns out Grams was right, which Sammy realized, she said, when she saw a man stealing money in a hotel across the street, and the thief also sees her.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: Grams told me my binoculars were going to get me into trouble. I just didn’t believe her.
Closing: That is, until I saw a man stealing money from a hotel room across the street — and he saw me.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- We will see the thief evade and/or attack Sammy at some point
- Sammy will find out who the thief is, but before that, who the victim is, and what the thief stole
OTHER COMMENTS
- All the Sammy Keyes books start with a very short prologue where you the reader are immediately introduced to the stakes, the setup, and the main character’s voice.
- It’s an interesting concept/structure, one that I haven’t seen done in many other books, but it does bring up the idea that if you format a book in a series a certain way, it’s nice to have that continuity through all the rest of the books in the series, to make them feel like “siblings.”
Chapter 1
In This Chapter
- Sammy Keyes is using her binoculars from her grandma’s apartment when she sees a thief in the act of stealing something from a room in the Heavenly Hotel across the way.
- Sammy does exactly what one should not do when spying on a thief in the act of stealing, and the thief spots you, too.
Sammy Keyes is introduced to us (in limited first person perspective and present-tense voice) as a middle school girl who secretly and illegally lives in her grandmother’s apartment.
Sammy spends much of her time stuck inside because Grams’ nosy neighbor, Mrs. Graybill, is a bitter old woman who is constantly on the lookout for “someone [doing] something she doesn’t think they’re supposed to be doing.”
So a bored Sammy is using her binoculars to do some people watching through the window, including watching dogs and their owners visiting the neighboring dog grooming store, the Pup Parlor, then skipping over the Bargain Books store owned by Mr. Bell, and ending up looking up the Heavenly Hotel — a place Grams calls “seedy.”
(What’s fun about re-reading this first book is seeing how some of the details Sammy mentions here become main features in her future mystery books)
Unbeknownst to Grams, Sammy has gone into the Heavenly Hotel before, and “chatted” briefly with the man at the counter, until he started asking where her parents were, which made Sammy take off, because “there’s no way I wanted to get into that.”
(Smart, to introduce a mystery intrinsic to the character herself, before getting to the actual mystery that is the plot of the book)
Sammy starts checking out different windows of the hotel, when she notices a guy on the fourth floor wearing black gloves and digging through a purse.
Sammy knows she should have called 911, but instead, she tries to get a clearer look. Unfortunately, the thief looks up and sees her watching.
Sammy then does “something really, really stupid.” She waves.
The thief ducks away, and now Sammy isn’t sure what to do. But Grams calls her to feed her cat, Dorito (who is also living at Grams’ illegally with Sammy), and when Grams knows something is up, Sammy confesses to using the binoculars…but not to seeing the thief.
Grams then decides Sammy needs to know how to knit, but Sammy is not a fan of the idea. When Grams asks her how she knows she’d hate it, Sammy says “Lady Lana tried to teach me.”
Through the conversation, the reader learns that Lady Lana is Sammy’s mother.
Grams is still determined to teach Sammy how to knit, but before Sammy can argue, their doorbell rings, and Sammy is sure it must be the thief from the Heavenly Hotel.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: It’s not like I was trying to get into trouble.
Closing: It’s the guy I saw at the Heavenly Hotel, come to shut me up for good.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- Sammy is going to get in trouble for using the binoculars and waving at the thief.
- Grams is going to get mad at Sammy.
OTHER COMMENTS
- This setup is the perfect one for this series, the idea of a middle school girl accidentally spotting a thief while snooping, and then instinctively waving at him is humorous and quirky, which is exactly what this book and its main character are.
- Another interesting thing is that Wendelin Van Draanen doesn’t introduce new characters by going into a lot of detail about their history with our viewpoint character.
- Instead, Sammy simply talks about them as if assuming the reader already kind of knows who they are, and we only REALLY find out who they are as we continue reading.
- It’s a really interesting technique — definitely cuts down on potential drag in pacing. I think I might like to experiment with this in my own work.
Chapter 2
In This Chapter
- Sammy’s best friend Marissa comes to ask her help finding her missing brother Mikey
- Sammy and Marissa go to the mall to locate Mikey and run into a few potential thief suspects
Grams answers the door, and turns out, the visitor is Marissa, who tells Sammy that Mikey is missing, she lost him at the mall.
(It’s interesting how Van Draanen just introduces characters without much background info. We’re told “it’s Marissa,” and we don’t know what Marissa looks like or what relationship she has to Sammy, we’re just thrown straight into the action. It’s an interesting methodology!)
Sammy goes with Marissa to look for Mikey, after Grams gives her reluctant permission.
Sammy and Marissa sneak past Mrs. Graybill’s and go down the fire escape stairs. Sammy explains narratively that she uses the fire escape stairs when she wants to avoid potentially being seen coming in and never leaving, were she to use the main stairs or elevator.
As Sammy and Marissa arrive at the mall, they hear the loudspeakers blaring DJ Rockin’ Rick on the radio. Marissa is a bit star-struck, but Sammy drags her away to look for Mikey.
They pass by Juicers, and Marissa recalls that her high school cousin Brandon works there and might have seen Mikey. Sammy describes Brandon as a nice guy, and feels a bit bashful around him, and luckily Brandon has seen Mikey, so he points the girls in the direction of the pet store.
They find Mikey watching the fish and eating popcorn, and Marissa is mad at him for leaving without telling her. Then she launches into him for eating junk food — candy bars and a Double Dynamo ice cream cone.
“You were supposed to stick with me and you went clear out to Maynard’s?” Marissa exclaims, but Mikey says no, he bought the ice cream from Oscar’s ice cream cart outside Jammin’ Records.
(I like how Van Draanen hid a clue, or rather an introduction to a clue, in a dialogue of a sister scolding her little brother while listing a bunch of junk food. It might seem a bit like the author is just trying to set the scene and do some characterization, but it’s actually relevant to the main mystery plot).
But now that Mikey’s been found, safe and sound, the three kids decide to head to the KRQK booth and check out Rockin’ Rick. He isn’t there, and Marissa has to go home, so Sammy says goodbye.
And as Sammy walks back to her own home, “thinking about what seventh grade is going to be like,” when she spots a man with “bushy brown hair and a beard.” he looks somewhat like the hotel thief, and Sammy sees him stop in front of the bookstore.
But the stranger kisses a woman and the two walk off pushing a baby stroller, so false alarm. Relieved, Sammy starts to move again, but bumps into a man holding a bunch of shopping bags.
The man walks away, keeping his head down, his face unseen under a ball cap. Sammy watches the guy go, and notices some police cars nearby, and Sammy decide to just take a look…
Comments & Analysis
Opening: The only thing I could find in ram’s closet to use on the guy was an umbrella.
Closing: And with all the commotion at the hotel — well, there was no way I could just pass by without taking a peek inside.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- We will find out who the suspicious man in the ball cap is.
OTHER COMMENTS
- Here we have our first red herring. In real life, an introverted man in a ball cap probably wouldn’t alert any attention whatsoever, but in this book, where we know we need to be on the lookout for a potential thief, this guy definitely seems suspicious.
- On the other hand, if you’ve already read multiple mysteries in the past, you should know this guy is not the thief. That’s the tricky thing for good mystery writers — they KNOW that readers are expecting a few red herrings, so they must put in characters who are clear red herrings and pull the legs out from under the reader in another more clever way.
- But is a red herring a real red herring when you strongly suspect that it is one? Something to consider…
- It’s interesting though to make the red herring very obvious (by describing him as TOO suspicious, as in this chapter) and just lean into the stereotype/expectations.
Chapter 3
In This Chapter
- Sammy visits the Heavenly Hotel and learns that $4K was stolen.
- Sammy meets two policemen and dislikes/is wary of one of them immediately.
Sammy heads into the Heavenly Hotel and hides herself behind a chair. Sammy reflects that she used to want to be a cop when she was in fourth grade, but now that she’s illegally living with her grandma, it didn’t take long to “figure out that you should stay away from people who ask nosy questions, and believe me, cops like to ask lots of nosy questions.”
Sammy sees a cop questioning a woman wearing “a dress that looked like it was made out of metal” with high heels and silver nylons and long fingernails “painted blackw ith silver moons and stars.” She also had hair “swirled around on top of her head and plastered with so much hair spray that it didn’t move.”
The woman is yelling and moving in an agitated way, and Sammy overhears her shouting at the police about having $4,000 cash, stolen.
The policeman, whom Sammy mentally dubs “Tall’n’Skinny” takes notes and says “we’ll do our best.”
When the distraught woman asks if he will look for fingerprints, Sammy can’t help herself. She steps out and says “You wont’ find any fingerprints.”
Everything is quiet as Sammy adds “He was wearing gloves.”
A second policeman turns to look at Sammy, and she’s dismayed — it’s Officer Borsch, a cop who once gave her a ticket for jaywalking, except Sammy gave him a fake name back then and now she’s afraid he might recognize her.
Sammy confesses that she saw the thief through binoculars and says she was visiting her grandmother in the Senior Highrise, an hour ago. Sammy describes the thief as “brown hair and a brown beard…wearing black gloves and a black jacket.”
The officer questions her, but all Sammy can say is everything (height, jacket, etc) was “kind of medium.” Sammy also thinks, but doesn’t say, that she feels like she’s seen the guy somewhere before.
The policemen want Sammy’s name, so she pops out her real name and a fake address: “375 East Jasmine.” She thinks that if the police were paying attention, they should have seen through her lie, since East Jasmine is the street where the wealthy people live — where Marissa lives.
But the police don’t say anything about it, and let her go. As Sammy leaves, she sees Officer Borsch watching her.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: I really thought it might only take a minute and that Grams wouldn’t even notice I was late. I thought wrong.
Closing: I stop and head down to the intersection, because I can tell — Officer Borsch is not going to sleep well until he remembers just exactly where he’s run into me before.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- Sammy’s lie about where she lives is going to come up again and complicate her life.
- Officer Borsch may remember Sammy’s jaywalking incident? (In reality, he doesn’t, not in this book, but there is definitely some bad blood between the two from the start, and we all can feel it — including the Borschman himself)
OTHER COMMENTS
- Similar to a previous comment, the fact that Sammy has a history with Officer Borsch before he arrives on scene gives the story more verisimilitude or power to suspend disbelief, in this context.
- If every character in the book was new to Sammy as they are new to the reader, it might not work so well.
- Speaking as one who’s gone through the entire Sammy Keyes mystery series, it’s fun to return to the beginning and see where certain character arcs begin.
- Borsch later becomes a great friend and ally to Sammy, and I don’t know how much VD planned or whether she’s more of a panther, but in order for their later friendship to work so well, it really helps to have this antagonistic relationship to start.
Chapter 4
In This Chapter
- Sammy gets a call from her absent mother.
- Sammy and Marissa attend their first day at a new school and immediately make an enemy.
Grams is mad that Sammy was late for dinner, and forces her to eat all her peas with no desert. Sammy goes to sleep on the couch, which is better than on the floor or with Grams, who snores (as Sammy found out when she used to sleep with her grandma due to her bad dreams).
The next morning, the phone rings and Grams tells Sammy it’s her mother. Sammy notes that normally she would argue with Grams, but given the events of last night, she takes the call.
Lady Lana, as Sammy calls her mother, “starts gushing about how much she loves me and misses me and how she can’t wait to see me again, but she’s so close to landing a part in a major motion picture and has to stay just a little while longer.”
Sammy thinks to herself that it’s been over a year since her mother abandoned her at her grandmother’s, saying she’d be back “soon.”
After the call, Sammy apologizes to Grams for being late, and Grams offers to make her French toast (using pound cake) for her first day of junior high.
At school, Sammy meets Marissa and they find their homeroom. Lost, Marissa chooses to ask a girl “with hair the color of fire,” and “five studs in each ear” who looks like an eighth-grader.
When Marissa asks, the girl laughs at them for wearing high-tops, but then the guy she is with recognizes Marissa as Brandon McKenze’s cousin.
The guy says his name is Taylor Briggs, and Brandon is his brother’s best friend. As Taylor talks to Marissa, Firehead (as Sammy calls the girl with the earrings) is getting visibly angry.
But Marissa and Sammy find their homeroom and as they wait for class to start, Sammy tries to tell Marissa about the robbery at the Heavenly Hotel. But just then, the girls notice that Firehead is in their class.
When Firehead sees Sammy staring, she sneers at her, calling her a “freak,” and Sammy talks back. The teacher sees Firehead sniping at Sammy, and asks her name. Turns out, Firehead’s name is Heather Acosta.
Heather is called up to lead the Pledge of Allegiance and clearly feels it’s humiliating, and Sammy can tell Heather blames her for it.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: Grams was mad all right. She made me eat cold fish and rice, and wouldn’t let me get up fromt he table until I’d eaten every single cold pea rolling around on my plate.
Closing: I can also tell that Heather Acosta is going to find a way to et me back. And when she does, it’ll be in spades.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- We will see more of Sammy’s mother, and she will be problematic. (Actually, we will, and she will, but not in this book)
- Heather is also going to cause problems in Sammy’s future.
OTHER COMMENTS
- One of the charms of mysteries, I’ve found, is their setting. Oftentimes, the mystery itself is quite formulaic and is more “fun” than it is “exciting, memorable, or profound.”
- And what makes the Sammy Keyes series fun is its distinctive setting in 1990s small town Southern California. The kinds of people, the buildings, the use of technology is all extremely clear about where we are, a world that no longer exists (SoCal is still here, but we’re never going back to the 90s. The 2020s are a very different world…)
Chapter 5
In This Chapter
- Sammy and Heather get into a tiff when Heather sticks her with a pin and Sammy punches her in the face.
- Sammy gets in trouble with the vice principle and gets suspended.
Sammy narrates her experiences in the different classes she has before lunch. At lunch, she tries again to tell Marissa about the robbery, but again they’re interrupted by Heather heading for their table.
Heather sits next to Marissa and asks to borrow lunch money. Sammy challenges her, as Marissa shoots her a look — as a child of wealthy parents, Marissa was constantly being asked for money in sixth grade. Marissa realizes that Taylor must have told Heather about her financial status, and Heather confirms.
Sammy tells Heather to “bug off,” but instead, Heather gives Sammy a “catty little smile; then she sticks me in the butt with a pin.”
Sammy yelps and jumps, and Heather saunters off, but Sammy’s not finished. She runs after Heather, pushing through a crowd of people, then punches her in the nose.
Heather is screaming and bleeding, and Sammy returns to her table and starts eating her PB&J.
A man comes over and asks Sammy to come with him, and Sammy follows him to a room with a plaque that says: Mr. Caan, Vice Principal.
Mr. Caan gives Sammy a lecture about “brawling” on campus and puts Sammy in a “Reflection Room” to think about what she did. Sammy finds this unjust, as Heather isn’t here being disciplined.
Mr. Caan comes back for her after a while, and says “I just got off the phone from a very strange conversation…”
And Sammy is suddenly genuinely sorry about hitting Heather, because now she’s probably upset her Grams again…
But Mr. Caan says “…with your mother.”
And Sammy is stunned. She doesn’t know what’s happened — has Grams pretended to be Lana?
What follows is a somewhat funny conversation where Mr. Caan is fishing for information about Sammy’s “odd” mother and Sammy making stuff up, not knowing what he’s talking about. But when Sammy talks back after Mr. Caan says that Heather was taken to the doctor’s, he decides to suspend her.
Marissa catches up with Sammy around Maynard’s Market and tells her that she thinks it’s cool she’s suspended. To cheer Sammy up, Marissa offers to buy her a Double Dynamo ice cream, and so they go into Maynard’s Market.
And there, inside, is the lady from the Heavenly Hotel.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: The morning took forever. Ms. Pilson sat us in alphabetical order and then spent the rest of the period giving us a “taste of things to come” in her English class.
Closing: And standing at the counter, with her mountain of hair looking extra shellacked, was the lady from the Heavenly Hotel.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- Sammy will do something interesting on her suspended day of school.
- Heather has to pay somehow for lying about Sammy.
- Sammy will find out who was on the other end of the phone — her mother, or her grandmother pretending to be her mother?
OTHER COMMENTS
- Beginnings are important, and the beginning of Heather and Sammy’s relationship is memorable, outrageously antagonistic, and also funny, in VD’s signature style. Like Sammy’s relationship to Officer Borsch, this is a great beginning (story-wise. Not saying getting stuck in the butt with a pin is great, of course)
- This chapter also sets up the idea that Marissa is a “rich girl” who has a hard time trusting in true friends, outside of Sammy, because most people just want to mooch off of her. This is an important issue that will play a role in the climax of the story, but also touches on the moral core of the story, of this entire series, which promotes the goodness of genuine friendship and love for others.
- Also, Sammy’s commentary on her school life is another great place where VD demonstrates her writing skills through Sammy’s distinctive, lightly-snarky voice.
Chapter 6
In This Chapter
- Marissa and Sammy see the victim of the hotel thief at Maynard’s Market and chat with her, finding out she is an astrologist.
- The girls buy ice cream from Oscar the blind-and-almost-deaf ice cream cart guy.
This is Sammy’s opportunity to tell Marissa about the robbery as the two girls duck behind “a carousel of spicy pork rinds” and watch the woman, who is wearing layers. “Like she went to the fabric store, rolled around in a few bolts of flimsy fabric, then checked out.”
(These are great descriptions)
Sammy notices the woman who was robbed in the market, and finally tells Marissa what is going on.
But as they’re whispering behind the pork rinds, Marissa and Sammy are called out by TJ Maynard, the grumpy son of the market owner. When he asks what the girls are doing, Sammy replies that they’re here to buy Double Dynamo drumsticks, but turns out the drumsticks are out.
Sammy notes to herself that’s probably because TJ ate them all, and then the woman turns and recognizes her. She tells TJ that Sammy was the one who saw the criminal through binoculars, and the two exchange words about who is going to successfully get out of dodge, first.
From their dialogue, Sammy and readers gather that the woman’s name is Madame Nashira and she is an astrologist.
They chat with Madame Nashira a little, and she reveals that she thinks fortune telling is bogus, but birth charts are her real specialty.
Then the girls leave.
Outside, they find Oscar, the ice cream cart pusher. Oscar is blind and pretty deaf, but he’s a whiz with a change-making machine.
Sammy and Marissa order Double Dynamos from Oscar and eat them on the grass when Marissa suddenly notices Mikey coming out of Maynard’s market with a bunch of candy bars.
Marissa says Mikey had skipped the first day of school saying he was sick, and she gives chase. Mikey tries to run away from his sister on his bike, but crashes into a newspaper stand.
Marissa throws the candy in the trash and takes her brother home.
Meanwhile, Sammy remembers that she’s been suspended, and also that her grandmother might be wondering where she is.
But as Sammy pounds up the fire escape stairs to her Grams’ apartment, she’s caught by Mrs. Graybill.
(Way to give Sammy tons of conflict to deal with. Not just the robbery but the school stuff and Mrs. Graybill. Home, school, and main mystery. Van Draanen’s covered all possible bases! Even TJ Maynard is a bit of an opposition force, although not a major one)
Comments & Analysis
Opening: I yanked on Marissa’s sleeve. “That’s who I’ve been trying to tell you about all day.”
Closing: And there, sitting in a folding chair with her arms crossed, waiting, is Mrs. Graybill.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- Sammy will get to know Madame Nashira more in the near future, since she’s an integral part of the mystery/crime.
OTHER COMMENTS
- I like how VD introduces the true culprit in a way that doesn’t tip people of that this is the true culprit. She’s already introduced so many interesting characters in interesting ways that the real thief might be assumed by readers to be just another character placed in the story to add flavor, when really he’s the key.
Chapter 7
In This Chapter
- Sammy is caught by her neighbor Mrs. Graybill
- Sammy visits her friend Hudson, an older gentleman with a suspicious renter living in the back of his house…
Mrs. Graybill is in her bathrobe and slippers, but she has lipstick on, and Sammy knows this is Graybill’s way of “dressing up for action.”
Graybill grabs Sammy and says “I knew it!”
Sammy feigns innocence but Graybill reveals that she’s discovered Sammy’s bubble gum on the fire escape.
Sammy spins a yarn about throwing away a bulky box of trash and that stymies Graybill for a bit. She pounds on Grams’ door and threatens her, saying Sammy living with her is “against the law.”
But Grams drags her inside the apartment and asks her if it looks like “a child lives here”?
Grams takes her through the apartment and bedroom and closet, but there’s no evidence of Sammy’s belongings anywhere. Graybill leaves in a huff and Grams turns to Sammy:
“So you’ve been suspended.”
Turns out, Grams was the one pretending to be Sammy’s mother on the other line and she wants to know what happened. Sammy tells her, and to her credit, Grams gives her a half hug and says “I wish I’d had a friend like you when I was growing up, Samantha Keyes.”
Then Sammy has to leave to make sure Mrs. Graybill doesn’t get suspicious, and she decides to head over to Hudson’s. Grams shakes her head and says “I wish you had some more friends your own age.”
(Introducing a new character without much intro, once again, but it works because there’s a sense we’re being dropped in the middle of the character’s life, which is kind of the point. The dialogue is natural-sounding and gives important clues without sounding like an info-dump)
Sammy uses masking tape to plug in the elevator escape door jamb on the fifth floor (instead of the fourth), and then makes a lot of noise taking the elevator down to the lobby so that everyone will notice her.
(Clever way to get around the nosy neighbor situation!)
Sammy arrives at Hudson’s one-story house “with a big stone fireplace and a nice shady porch” as well as “more books than the library.”
Hudson Graham turns out to be a thick-white-haired, bushy-eyebrowed man with colorful cowboy boots.
(It’s interesting how Van Draanen — let’s call her VD from now on for short — introduces characters with memorable, iconic details. Like colorful cowboy boots. Her visual descriptions are extremely on point)
He invites Sammy in and she’s settling in on a porch chair when a man shows up, wearing a baseball cap and windbreaker. Sammy recognizes him as the guy who she bumped into at the mall, and when he turns, she calls out to him, but he keeps going.
Hudson greets the man as “Bill,” before he disappears and Sammy wonders who Bill is. He’s Hudson’s new renter, Bill Eckert, who’s living in the back of Hudson’s house, in a garage that Hudson turned into an apartment.
Hudson gives Sammy the comic section of the paper when Hudson gets agitated. Apparently, the newspaper says that a nearby house was recently robbed, making that the sixth burglary in the last 2.5 weeks.
(Upping the stakes of the mystery! No doubt the robberies have to do with the burglar that Sammy spotted)
Hudson tells Sammy the details of the case — the fact that the family was out for the night and came back unexpectedly early to find themselves being robbed. Hudson and Sammy deduce that the burglar must have known the family to know they were going to be out at that time.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: “A-ha!” she says. “A-ha!” Then she springs up from her chair and grabs me by the arm.
Closing: “He must know them!” Hudson gives me a great big smile and swings his other foot onto the railing. “I’d bet my brand-new boots on it.”
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- Mrs. Graybill will cause more problems for Sammy, long-term.
OTHER COMMENTS
- Mrs. Graybill is an excellent villain. She’s even more interesting (and irritating) than the thief, because we know that guy is going to be caught by the end of this book, but she is a long-term threat. She gives off Dolores Umbridge vibes — tyrannical nosiness, which is more infuriating than an open dictator.
Chapter 8
In This Chapter
- Hudson’s dog finds an empty purse in Hudson’s backyard that appears to belong to the neighbors.
- Sammy’s neighbor is threatened and Sammy is blamed.
Sammy tells Hudson about the robbery she witnessed at the Heavenly Hotel…or rather, she wants to do it without looking like a creeper with her binoculars, so she tries to say it in a roundabout way, but just then, Hudson’s dachshund Rommel shows up dragging a purse.
Rommel is all muddy, obviously having dug something and Hudson notices the wallet is missing from the purse, and wonders where Rommel found it.
When Sammy finds a plastic photo-keeper with pictures of three kids inside, Hudson recognizes them as the Keltner twins and their little sister Elyssa.
(One of the fun things about re-reading this series is seeing things I missed the first time around. Like the fact that the Keltners are not just random people that VD mentions once and never again. A future mystery will feature Elyssa…)
Hudson and Sammy follow Rommel to see where he’s been digging and discover trash all over the backyard.
They put the trash back and Hudson says that Elyssa mentioned the family being away for the week. He decides to check out their place, and sure enough, no one is there. Hudson decides to go home and call the police, but Sammy doesn’t want to bump into Officer Borsch again, so she excuses herself to go home.
But as Sammy is heading down to the fourth floor, she sees Mrs. Graybill talking to Grams, and she ducks away, but not fast enough. Graybill yells “There she is!” and Sammy has to reveal herself.
Graybill shakes a napkin in her face angrily, demanding answers. Sammy has no idea what is going on, and it turns out someone has slipped a note under Graybill’s door.
Sammy takes the note and reads it, realizing she knows who might have written it. It says “if you talk, you’ll be sorry.”
Grams snaps at Graybill when she keeps threatening her, and then drags Sammy into the apartment and asks “how could you?”
Sammy tries to explain, but Grams keeps yelling at her, until the phone rings. It’s for Sammy, but Grams refuses to let Sammy answer, until the person on the other end mentions the police are at their house, looking for Sammy. Then Grams turns the phone over to Sammy.
(I love how the action never lets up in this book! Everything fits so well. It’s not an adult thriller, but the pace is snappy, and all the conflicts work together)
Comments & Analysis
Opening: I let Hudson have the funnies while I read the article.
Closing: She listens for another minute, then hold out the phone to me without a word.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- The note to Graybill is definitely a clue that Sammy will use to crack the case.
OTHER COMMENTS
- Another red herring introduced in this chapter (the purse), but it’s interesting that this false clue doesn’t get a bit more time or complications in the rest of the story. We also never figure out how the empty purse got into the backyard.
Chapter 9
In This Chapter
- Sammy meets with police, and gets in trouble with Grams.
Of course, it’s Marissa, and she tells Sammy that she lied to the police, saying Sammy was in the shower. Marissa’s parents aren’t home, and Sammy has to run.
Sammy tells Grams she will explain later and then runs to Marissa’s as fast as she can, thinking how “before my skateboard got stolen, I used to go to Marissa’s house almost every day.”
(Another random side note fact that ends up coming back later. Seriously quite interesting how VD world-builds, even though this is not a fantasy novel)
Sammy arrives in the back, wets her hair and asks Marissa to throw her a towel to keep up the “taking a shower” story, and then they charge into the living room.
The police want Sammy to look at some pictures to see if she recognizes anyone. But Mikey comes in and the police ask who he is, and Sammy has to say he’s her brother. Mikey hears the lie and is probably about to give the whole game away when Marissa comes in and yanks him out.
The officers leave, and Sammy finds Marissa leaning against a closet door, where she’s stashed Mikey for the time being.
They let him out and Sammy threatens him by saying if he tells on them, they will tell on him about the skipping school and buying junk food. “They’ll ground you for a month, and they’ll take away your allowance…They won’t let you have anything but broccoli and fish. You hear what I’m saying? Broccoli and fish!”
(I don’t know what’s so horrible about that, personally, I love broccoli and fish…)
So Mikey swears not to tell. Then Sammy accepts Marissa’s offer of orange juice, and fills her in on the police situation and she forgets about Grams until the phone rings.
Unfortunately, Marissa and Sammy are in the middle of laughing over some jokes when Marissa picks up and before Sammy has a chance to explain anything to Grams, Grams demands to talk to Marissa and tells her to have Sammy spend the night.
Marissa thinks this is great, but Sammy is concerned that this means Grams is so mad at her she doesn’t want to talk to her. Sammy tries to call back, but Grams doesn’t pick up and Sammy ends up going into the bathroom to cry it out.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: It’s Marissa, all right, and you can tell — she’s dancing around with her phone, biting on a fingernail, having a heart attack.
Closing: And sitting there in the middle of the bathroom floor, surrounded by turquoise tile and turquoise towels, I bury my face in my hands and cry.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- This is not the last Sammy has seen of the police.
OTHER COMMENTS
- This is an interesting chapter because Sammy worries her grandmother, who makes her stay over at her friend’s house. When I first read this as a younger reader, I was more sympathetic to Sammy, thinking her Grams worried too much and her reaction wasn’t great. As an older reader, I better understand what kind of worry adults get into over kids…but I still think Grams’ reaction wasn’t great.
Chapter 10
In This Chapter
- Marissa cries over her neglectful parents.
Marissa’s parents arrive home at 8pm and her mother mentions that they (the parents) will be going on a trip to Big Falls that weekend, and could she take care of her brother?
Marissa takes Sammy to her room, where she bursts into tears because her parents never take her and her brother with them when they go on trips.
Marissa is interrupted when she notices a tiny spider which freaks her out. Sammy smashes it for her, and Marissa resumes her complaint about always eating frozen dinners and not having her parents home. “I can’t believe how lucky you are,” Marissa tells Sammy, who is surprised, until Marissa says that her grandmother is always home.
But, Sammy points out, Marissa’s parents give her anything she wants.
But Marissa replies that her parents give her money to leave them alone. And that Sammy is her only friend because “you’re the only one who’s never asked me for money. You won’t even take it when I try to give it to you!”
Everyone else, she says, is nice to her because they want to borrow money.
Sammy thinks about this as Marissa falls asleep and Sammy also turns in for the night, wishing for the next day to come so she can explain things to Grams.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: Marissa’s parents finally showed up around eight o’clock.
Closing: And when I go back to bed I stare out the window at the moon, wishing for morning so I can get home and explain everything to Grams.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- Suggests that maybe something will challenge Sammy and Marissa’s close relationship? But not necessarily…
OTHER COMMENTS
- It’s really nice to see a healthy girls’ friendship in books, where the main character has a best friend to mutually be honest and open and vulnerable with.
- Also, while Marissa’s grief over her neglectful parents is an important overall thematic element that deserves thinking about, it ALSO functions on an important plot level, as we will see at the climax of the book, which is one of the keys of great writing. When elements in the story multitasks, performing several functions but always gracefully.
Chapter 11
In This Chapter
- Sammy worries about her Grams, who is not around
- Sammy spends her day off of school by visiting the astrologer-theft-victim Gina Nashira.
Marissa offers to give Sammy a ride on her handlebars, but Sammy knows this is too dangerous to try.
So Marissa bikes to school and Sammy heads home, but Grams is not there. Sammy panics, wondering if the hotel thief has attacked Grams, and as there’s nothing else to do, Sammy ends up vacuuming the entire apartment and checking the bathroom for clues that Grams is fine.
Her toothbrush is wet, so it looks like she was fine, and she finds a daub of lipstick on kleenex, and wonders what special occasion had necessitated Grams putting on lipstick and going out?
Then Sammy realizes she needs some gum to replace the masking tape she used to hold the door open on the fifth floor, so she goes to Maynard’s market.
(Even these little details, like using gum to replace masking tape in order to keep the fifth floor door propped open are used to further the plot. Nothing is wasted. Very economical storytelling).
Sammy arrives in time to hear TJ on the phone upset because an investment a friend told him to make has gone bad.
Sammy buys her gum and then gets the idea to go to Madame Nashira’s House of Astrology. Gina is there, and she is surprised to see Sammy, thinking she is “out late” when it’s actually ten in the morning.
Gina realizes Sammy is worried about the thief, and Sammy admits she waved to him. To distract her, Gina asks her if she’s ever had a birth chart done, and when Sammy says no, Gina pulls out a sample birth chart and shows Sammy how they work.
(It’s clear VD knows a lot about birth charts. I wonder how much research she did on that.)
Gina pegs Sammy as “an Aries” ad then advises Sammy to try looking at the stars through binoculars sometime. Gina says she once hauled her telescope to the roof of the mall to do just that.
Sammy is surprised and asks how she did that, and Gina says that you just go behind one of the “Employees Only” doors.
Then Gina says it’s tie for her to go to sleep, so Sammy leaves as Gina locks up.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: In the morning, Marissa offered me a ride on her handlebars, but I figured out a long time ago that Marissa McKenze is not someone you should accept a ride from.
Closing: I’ve got a whole new plan for how I’m going to spend my day.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- TJ’s money problems will be mentioned again, either to show him as the thief or, more likely, the red herring.
OTHER COMMENTS
- Again, VD has an excellent sense of place. Nashira’s location is like a microcosm in the larger world of Santa Martina, Sammy’s town, and it’s very distinctive and easy to visualize and “get a feel for.”
Chapter 12
In This Chapter
- Sammy goes to the roof of the mall to see what she can see with her binoculars, and discovers interesting things
- Officer Borsch comes to visit.
Sammy grabs her binoculars from home, then goes to the mall. She sneaks through the Employees Only door and finds a network of corridors. Just then, a door swings open, revealing Marissa’s cousin Brandon!
Sammy is surprised to see him there and he explains he had a dentist appointment, then he asks her why she’s there, and Sammy admits she was suspended for punching someone in the nose.
“Well, I’m sure they deserved it,” Brandon laughs, and Sammy asks him how to get to the roof.
He tells her then adds “You didn’t hear that from me, right?”
Sammy reaches the roof with her binoculars and starts people-watching. She spots the police station, the school, and Oscar selling the ice cream, cleaning his glasses with a handkerchief.
But it’s getting hot and Sammy decides to get off the roof when she pauses to check Hudson’s house. And there, she spots her grandmother laughing and drinking iced tea.
(Clever how VD hides a vital clue in this section of the story by burying it among other details)
Sammy heads home, getting angrier with time. In the afternoon, Grams comes home and Sammy confronts her about meeting with Hudson, because she thought it was “high time I knew a little bit more about that man” because Sammy hangs out there so often.
Grams thinks Hudson is very knowledgeable, but an “insufferable flirt.”
Then she confronts Sammy about what’s going on, and Sammy tells her the whole story about the hotel thief.
They are interrupted by a knock at the door, and it’s Officer Borsch. Sammy dives into a closet to hide as Grams opens the door.
Apparently the Graybill has called him because she thinks Sammy left her a threat on the napkin. Then Borsch asks Grams where Sammy is, and Grams says, home from school, I suppose.
Borsch then asks what street Sammy lives on, and Sammy panics for a bit but then Grams says “East Jasmine” and Sammy “feels like whooping” in celebration.
But she is interrupted by something alive behind her…
Comments & Analysis
Opening: Mrs. Graybill’s nose wasn’t in the hallway, and Grams’ binoculars were under the bed — right where I’d left them.
Closing: And I’m sitting there, with my hands in fists, going, Yes! Yes! Yes! as loud as my brain can shout, when something brushes against my shoulder. Not Grams’ coat. Not one of her dresses. // Something alive.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- Sammy (might) be discovered by Borsch? It’s a possibility…
OTHER COMMENTS
- The brilliant part of this chapter is that it contains the key (pun!) clue to the solving of the mystery. But it’s hidden under other mundane details of what else Sammy sees through her binoculars, and is immediately overshadowed by a more emotionally important fact — that Sammy sees her Grams having iced tea with Hudson.
- This is the reason why the earlier emotional scene where Sammy pisses off her grandma and isn’t allowed to sleep at home matters. Because readers are more concerned with Sammy and Grams’ relationship that they are more likely to miss a big clue when it’s right under their noses.
Chapter 13
In This Chapter
- Marissa updates Sammy on the school grapevine re: her suspension for punching Heather, and how all the kids are on Heather’s side, it seems…
- Sammy and Marissa interview Gina the theft-victim at the Heavenly Hotel
…which turns out to be Dorito, her cat. the cat has left the closet door open and Grams covers by talking about her mischievous cat as she swings the closet door closed again.
And as Grams talks to Officer Borsch, Sammy thinks about how no one believes her when she talks, but she knows that she has everything she needs to prove she’s not lying…only, she needs to piece it together.
That night, Marissa calls and says Heather came back to school with a bandage on her nose, claiming it was broken, milking her injury for all its worth while her friend Tenille starts a Help Heal Heather Fund to solicit donations. Sammy finds this hilarious and Marissa tells her Tenille even asked her for money, because it was “partly” Marissa’s fault that Heather got punched.
According to Marissa, “I told her to drop dead. I told her you were my best friend and anyone who pricked you in the butt with a pin deserved to have her nose broken.”
“I tossed that around some and decided that what Marissa probably said was ‘Sorry, I don’t have any money today.”
(That’s kind of hilarious, and a great writing technique to add to my swipe files…)
Then Sammy fills Marissa in on visiting Madame Nashira and snooping on the roof of the mall, and Marissa decides she wants to go to the Heavenly Hotel with Sammy.
Sammy thinks:
“I know exactly what Grams would say if she knew we were talking about going over to the Heavenly Hotel — it would be a very short conversation starting with the letter N and ending with the letter O.”
But then Marissa convinces her to meet up after dinner at Maynard’s around seven.
Sure enough, at seven, Sammy sees her best friend waiting:
“Marissa’s never on time. Unless she’s waiting to see the inside of the Heavenly Hotel, I guess, because there she was at seven sharp, waiting for me in front of Maynard’s.”
(It’s funny how VD introduces this section by saying that Marissa is “never on time,” but then immediately contradicts this by saying “unless she’s waiting to see the inside of the Heavenly…”)
Sammy coaches Marissa on what to do:
“Just act like you belong.”
“What do you mean, like I belong?”
“You know, like it’s your house.”
“Oh, okay,” she whispers.
So I whisper back, “Do you talk like this in your own house?”
She blinks. “No…”
“So stop whispering!”
The hotel is mildly busy, with a few people talking in the lobby and Sammy grabs Marissa and takes her upstairs. But they are stopped by Cigar Man, Sammy’s nickname for the guy who is in charge of keeping an eye on the lobby. So named because he’s “chomping on a cigar.”
The guy doesn’t buy Sammy’s story, but Sammy says she’s here to see Gina, and the man finally picks up the phone to see if she’s in. When Gina hears that Sammy is there, the man sends her up to the fourth floor, in room 423.
Gina invites Sammy and Marissa in, and Sammy observes that Gina’s hairdo is “all kind of clumped together and sideways and strands of it are sticking straight out in places looking like something a plumber would find in your pipes and say, ‘Aha! Here’s your problem, ma’am.’”
Sammy asks Gina if the thief might have known that the money was there. Gina says no one else was broken into, and that the thief had gotten into her room by breaking off the doorknob.
Again, Sammy asks if there was anyone who knew about the money, and Gina says she ran into a girlfriend of hers by the corner store and she talked to the friend about it.
Gina says there’s no way her friend could have robbed her, though, and when Sammy asks if there was a boyfriend or someone, Gina says no. Sammy asks if anyone overheard her, and she says no, she doesn’t think so. Then Sammy wonders aloud if TJ might have overheard.
Gina laughs it off and says he doesn’t have initiative to pull this off. But Sammy says, what if TJ has money problems?
Gina says that she was in the shower when the purse was stolen.
This triggers Sammy’s spidey senses. How come the thief didn’t trigger the guy with the cigar downstairs?
You mean Andre? Gina asks. That’s a good question!
Then Marissa says, maybe the thief lives in the hotel. Gina mutters why the police didn’t ask her all these questions?
Sammy and Marissa leave then, and as they wait for the elevator, Sammy notices a door with a push bar and decides to check it out on instinct. Sure enough, she finds that someone has jammed the latch to keep it from catching.
(Nice touch, having Sammy’s home problems and the skills she’s learned there contribute to her solving the mystery here).
Sammy realizes nothing is wadded up in the jamb, but there’s something on the ground — a napkin with the letters HH and the number 423.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: I had company. And I’m not talking a clothes moth or something. I’m talking big company.
Closing: And scribbled across the napkin are the letters HH. And underneath them, the number 423.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- Gina talking to her friend about her money and where she’s staying is going to play a role in the unraveling of the mystery.
- The napkin will lead to the unmasking of the thief.
OTHER COMMENTS
- VD has a rare skill of making even unpleasant, seedy people and places somehow interesting and lovable. Jane Austen also does this. The majority of characters in Pride & Prejudice, for example, are self-centered, foolish people, but when you read the book, you’re more inclined to laugh fondly at them than to hate them or worse, find them boring. VD does this as well with her zany cast of characters.
Chapter 14
In This Chapter
- Sammy and Marissa try to take a shortcut, get chewed out by a police officer, and get in more trouble
Marissa and Sammy run out the back of the Heavenly Hotel and see a chain link fence. They try to climb it, but it’s wobbly and Marissa gets stuck. Sammy helps her down and then they look at the napkin — it’s a Double Dynamo napkin, and Sammy thinks it looks like the napkin Mrs. Graybill had.
Sammy wants to go to the police, but Marissa is reluctant, since her pants were ripped when she tried to climb the fence. Sammy spots parallel bike tracks and tries to follow them, but it leads to a dead end.
Finding it odd that the bike tracks don’t go anywhere, Sammy and Marissa head toward Maynard’s. They see a police car stopped outside the Heavenly and Sammy wants to peek in but Marissa doesn’t with her pants situation.
Luckily for Sammy, Officer Borsch comes out and scolds Sammy for “riling up” Gina, who called him over.
Sammy isn’t happy with being scolded, and debates whether to give him the napkin clue, but in the end decides to do it, since the thief is somewhere nearby and might still threaten her.
Officer Borsch, however, thinks Sammy is lying again. He believes she created both notes and then he storms away.
Sammy and Marissa are both annoyed, but Sammy also realizes that if she doesn’t figure out who the real thief is, she might be the next suspect.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: “Holy smokes!” Marissa says when I show her the napkin.
Closing: I nod. “Yeah. Next thing you know he’s going to decide I’m the one who stole Gina’s money.” And even though it sounds ridiculous, part of my brain’s telling me that if I don’t figure out who did, that might be exactly what happens.”
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- If the mystery is not solved soon, Sammy WILL become a prime suspect.
OTHER COMMENTS
- I like how VD raises the stakes, here, with Sammy now not just trying to track down the thief to help Gina or save herself from potential retribution, but also in order to keep HERSELF from being framed for the theft, at this point.
- It’s not necessarily life-and-death thriller kind of stuff, but that’s the thing about a good story. It doesn’t have to be.
- In fact, just like miniature art figurines, sometimes a story well told, even if the stakes are relatively low (no life-and-death or fate-of-the-world-depends-on-you type of stakes) can be much more impressive than a story told on the grand scale with lots of life-and-death threats and gore and violence and whatever.
Chapter 15
In This Chapter
- Grams teaches Sammy to knit, then sends Sammy to buy cookies and Sammy consults with Hudson on the case
- Sammy is shown the true identity of one red herring
When Grams asks Sammy where she’s been, Sammy says “walking around with Marissa,” and when Grams asks where, Sammy is reluctant to say, and settles on the partial truth that she “had to talk to Officer Borsch.”
But Grams is not fooled. Sammy reeks of cigarettes, she points out, and Sammy has to admit she went to the Heavenly to talk to Gina, and found Officer Borsch on the way out.
That cools Grams down and she says she has a surprise for Sammy. Sammy is excited, until she sees that the surprise is knitting wool and needles. She teaches Sammy to knit and purl and then she also pulls out her own embroidery project.
“You know, the kind that’s all sealed up in thick plastic with a picture on the front of what you wind up with when you’re all done. Those pictures aren’t really accurate, though, because they never show any blood spots on them.”
(Ha! One thing to appreciate about the Sammy Keyes series is Sammy’s voice. She sounds like a teenager talking to a friend about her adventures and escapades.)
Grams seems a bit evasive about her project, which she says is for the St. Mary’s bazaar this year, so of course Sammy wants to see what it is.
(St. Mary’s is another name-drop that will come in useful in a future book. It’s interesting to see how well-developed VD’s world is by the time she’d written the first book in an eventual-13-book series)
It turns out to be a pair of cowboy boots on a fence. After working in silence for a while, Grams voices a wish for pecan shortbreads. Although Sammy hates those cookies, she jumps at the opportunity to go down to Maynard’s and buy some.
At Maynard’s, Sammy buys the cookies, then decides to pop over to Hudson’s on her way back. She asks him what “pork bellies” are, because that’s what she heard TJ talking about on the phone, and Hudson explains the intricacies of the stocks.
(I remember not understanding a word of what Hudson was saying here when I first read this part as a kid. Now that I’m not a kid, it still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I like that VD doesn’t dumb things down for a middle grade novel.
(I like how she doesn’t underestimate children. Even if they don’t fully understand a concept like stock trading or investments, it’s still an important part of life they need to be exposed to, early)
There’s a whole page or two where Hudson gives Sammy a concrete example of what Options are, while sharing a slice of chocolate cake with her, and Sammy says it sounds like gambling. Hudson agrees and
(I think another reason I’ve loved the Sammy Keyes series since I was a kid was its portrayal of relationships. For example, this one with Graham. Sammy doesn’t have a father or even a grandfather so Hudson is her father figure.
(There was always something so comforting and positive about a teen having a grandfatherly mentor-like character in her life, teaching and helping her, and I always wished I had something like that — someone like Hudson — myself, when I was young).
Then Sammy asks Hudson how much he knows about his renter, Bill. Sammy says she bumped into Bill in the mall an hour after the robbery, he was carrying a lot of packages, and Officer Borsch thinks all the recent crimes are connected. She wonders what the purse was doing in Hudson’s trash can.
(Red herring alert!)
But Hudson says Bill has a good job and doesn’t need to steal. Sammy is dubious and then Hudson reveals that Bill is none other than Rockin’ Rick, the DJ from KRQK.
Sammy decides she needs to get home, and Hudson gives her some cake to take to her. But Grams lets her have the cake while she takes the shortbreads.
As she knits, Sammy thinks about the mystery thief and also about her school issues with Heather Acosta, trying to figure out what to do.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: Grams knew right away that I’d been up to something.
Closing: Trouble is, I didn’t have a clue how.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- Now that we know one red herring, the next or next-next culprit must be the real hotel thief.
OTHER COMMENTS
- So this is why the knitting concept is introduced much earlier. So we can have a scene where Sammy has a reason to leave the house and visit Hudson and so on.
Chapter 16
In This Chapter
- Sammy reveals the truth about her suspension and gets revenge on Heather at school
- Marissa and Sammy go to the roof of the mall, and Sammy has a lightbulb moment.
The next day, Sammy’s back in school, and being whispered about and pointed at, no doubt thanks to Heather’s gossip.
When Sammy finally sees Heather, she (Sammy) starts laughing because Heather’s wearing an enormous cast on her nose.
Sammy realizes Heather’s nose cast is completely fake and unnecessary, designed to win pity points.
At lunch, Sammy overhears Heather cozying up to Danny Urbanski, complaining that her doctor, Dr. Grant, told her she can’t take off her nose cast until Friday.
Marissa is irritated by Heather not just for being Heather but for making moves on Danny, whom Marissa has had a crush on “for ages.”
Sammy digs up some loose change, goes to a pay phone and looks up Dr. Grant’s number in the phone book. (This is how you know the book is set in the 90s).
Sammy pretends to be Heather and asks for the doctor, requesting that the doctor tell the vice principal Mr. Caan to stop forcing her to wear a bandage on her nose.
Not long after, Mr. Caan comes “steaming into the cafeteria” and yells at Heather to take the cast off her nose, since all she had was a nosebleed. Heather is publicly embarrassed, and when she sees Sammy watching and smiling a little, she figures out Sammy is responsible, and attacks her.
Mr. Caan comes running to pull Heather off Sammy, but gets there just in time for Sammy to duck one of Heather’s punches, resulting in Heather punching Mr. Caan.
Then all the students gang up on Tenille, Heather’s toadie, wanting their money back, and Sammy uses her confusion to clear up that Heather was the one who first stabbed her in the butt with a pin.
Danny says to Sammy: “I’m glad you punched her. She deserved it.” And this makes Marissa celebrate.
The end result is that Heather is suspended for three days. After school, Marissa asks Sammy if she wants an ice cream, and they head over to Oscar’s cart to get Double Dynamos.
Then Sammy takes Marissa to the roof of the mall and they do some “sightseeing” and then Marissa talks about Danny. When they finish their ice cream, Marissa heads home and Sammy goes to throw away their trash when staring at the napkins triggers a thought that makes her think she knows who the hotel thief is.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: The minute I got to school I could tell Heather’d been doing a lot of talking.
Closing: I know who the hotel thief is.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- Readers will find out who the hotel thief is.
- But it’s not going to be so easy to prove it or capture him.
OTHER COMMENTS
- I like how Sammy was in the same place as when she first spotted her definitive/key clue. It’s not just interesting story-structure-wise, it also psychologically makes sense. Our memories are often very location-influenced (look up “method of loci,” for example), and it makes perfect sense that Sammy would have her realization while sitting in the exact location where she’d first unknowingly spotted the main clue.
Chapter 17
In This Chapter
- Sammy runs to find Marissa and asks her for a loan at the exact last time.
- Sammy sets the trap.
To test her theory, Sammy will need serious money, and she tries to ask Brandon in the mall at first, but he doesn’t have much cash on him. He suggests asking Marissa, and Sammy goes off to find her…
And comes across Marissa standing next to Heather. Sammy, in a hurry, asks to borrow money, and then Heather starts laughing, mockingly: “Sammy never asks me for money…Sammy’s my friend.”
Marissa throws money at Sammy and runs off crying and Sammy is torn about what to do when Heather snatches the money.
Sammy tackles her at the escalator and threatens to push her face over the edge of the top step unless she returns the money, and she does.
Sammy narrates that she should have called the police, but she doesn’t want to be stuck with Officer Borsch. So instead, Sammy heads to St. Mary’s Church. She writes on the money to mark it, and then hides behind the bushes.
Sammy spots the hotel thief coming down the street and debates whether to plant her bait now or later. But just then she hears a bike clicking behind her, and it’s Marissa.
They apologize to each other for the scene at the mall, and Sammy pulls Marissa over to witness her planting a ten dollar bill face up on the walkway. Then a bit later, she plants a five dollar bill.
Then she and Marissa hide behind a statue.
Then Sammy points out the man who she thinks is the hotel thief to Marissa.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: To prove it, I need money. Serious money. None of this twelve cents stuff.
Closing: I point to the end of the walkway. “Him!”
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- We will see who the hotel thief is, and he better be surprising.
OTHER COMMENTS
- I like how Sammy sets a trap instead of just going to the police. It makes her more proactive and interesting as a character.
- I’m also glad they didn’t drag out Marissa’s misunderstanding with Sammy too long. They have such a great friendship, it would be hard to let them drag this on for too long.
Chapter 18
In This Chapter
- The thief is revealed, and Sammy chases him down.
The man is Oscar, and Marissa is shocked — can’t be, he’s blind! She exclaims, but Sammy says “How would a blind person know if his glasses were clean or not?”
Marissa doesn’t get it, but Sammy hushes her. They watch as Oscar stops and then slowly, subtly picks up the ten dollar bill, under the pretense of tying his shoes.
Then he does the same with the five dollar bill. Just then, Marissa sees a spider and freaks out, jumping up and screaming.
(And here comes the spider scene from earlier in the novel, back again. Now we know why it was there)
This catches Oscar’s attention, and when he sees Sammy, “well, he knew right away that that money hadn’t come from God.”
Instead of running away, though, Sammy sees Oscar looking around and realizes he plans to come after them. Sammy grabs Marissa to stop her freaking out about the spider and tells her to run to the police.
Oscar grabs Sammy by the ankle so she kicks him in the head with her other foot. And as his blind-guy glasses fly off his face, Sammy realizes he definitely is the hotel thief. She starts running for the police station and partway there, realizes that if Oscar takes off, he’ll be on the loose for the rest of her life.
So she circles back to St. Mary’s, but nothing’s there. No Oscar, and no ice cream cart.
She spots some kids biking past her and as she sees the bike tracks, she realizes where Oscar might be. She runs into Maynard’s begging to use the phone, but TJ won’t let her. So she tells him to call 911 and say the hotel thief is on the corner of Broadway and Wesler.
Then Sammy charges out the door and tries to find a shortcut to the back of the Heavenly Hotel.
She’s almost there and decides to climb a wall, but she’s surrounded by agitated dogs and finally manages to do it by overturning a trash can to stand on.
Sammy circles around and peeks through some tree branches and sure enough, there’s Oscar, in a blond man’s disguise. Unfortunately, he sees her too. They both freeze for a moment, but then he runs for her.
Sammy heads down the street with Oscar (who she now calls “ol’ Blondie” in the narration) right behind her. Sammy tries to head for the police station by way of the mall, where she thinks there are too many people for Oscar to do anything.
Sammy tries to run up a grassy slope, but the grass is wet from the sprinklers and makes her slip. She doesn’t have enough time and so decides to hide behind a Dumpster.
Then Sammy hears a noise and realizes there’s something alive inside the Dumpster. Oscar leans over the edge of the Dumpster, halfway inside, looking for Sammy, when Sammy realizes what she can do — she grabs the Dumpster lid and yanks down so that Oscar is pinned half in the Dumpster with his legs sticking out.
Sammy knows she can’t run from Oscar, he’s like a yellow jacket. So she sits on top of the Dumpster and jumps up and down screaming for help.
Finally, a police officer comes charging around the corner, and it’s “The Borsch-man.”
Sammy is relieved to see him, and when he tells her to get off the Dumpster, she complies. Borsch’s teammate shows up too (Sammy nicknames him “Tall ’n’ Skinny”) and when Oscar emerges — after an orange alley cat comes streaking out of the Dumpster — he is covered in trash, looking like “the Man from Planet Slime.”
(VD is great with descriptive nicknames as well)
Borsch and his partner arrest Oscar and take him to jail, with Sammy and Marissa riding along.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: Marissa looks at me like my marbles have just completely shattered.
Closing: And Marissa and I are coming along for the ride.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
- Nothing big at this point, just wrap up some loose ends…(although the purse never quite explained)
OTHER COMMENTS
- Although this is a children’s book so it doesn’t go into or even hint at anything too graphically violent or destructive, but as an adult re-reading this, it reminds me of just how evil Oscar is. He’s not just a clown with his multiple disguises, he seems to literally be bent on actual child murder when he goes after Sammy.
- Because if he were to just beat her up, she’d still be able to tell on him, so the fact that he goes AFTER her means that somewhere inside him, he probably wants to kill her. In other words, the hotel thief isn’t just another thief. He’s a potential murderer as well…
- And I liked how Sammy uses her surroundings (namely the dumpster lid) to save the day, and herself. It shows her spunk, intelligence, and courage.
- And it’s reminiscent of another Sammy move in the series, the Snake Eyes story later on.
Chapter 19
In This Chapter
- The police interview Sammy on the whole story, and she reveals the clues.
When the police want to call the girls’ “parents,” Marissa says that they are away, so instead Sammy calls Grams.
Sammy also learns Tall ’n’ Skinny’s real name, Sergeant Jacobson.
Jacobson fills out paperwork and asks why Sammy and Marissa have different last names, and Sammy tells a partial truth — her mom ran off when she was young and she’s actually Marissa’s foster sister.
Then Jacobson has Sammy tell him the whole story, and Sammy does, including the part where she was on the roof ot he mall and saw Oscar sitting alone, buffing his glasses, and how she eventually realized that’s not something a blind man would do.
The other clue was the napkins. The fact that they were Double Dynamo napkins was a giveaway.
But Jacobson doesn’t know about the napkins because apparently Borsch thought it all a prank by Sammy and failed to inform him. So Jacobson goes to have a chat with Borsch and comes back with the napkins.
He then asks if Sammy had any other clues.
She mentions that Gina had talked about the money with her friend in front of Maynard’s. But she had ignored Oscar, because people think he’s blind and almost deaf, so they assume he can’t hear them speaking in a normal voice.
Sammy realized that Oscar “cruises around watching and listening to people all day” and when he realizes someone is going on vacation or something, he steals their money.
Sammy then asks if they can recover Marissa’s $15, and reveals that she’d marked the money with the words “I’m the hotel thief” on both bills.
Jacobson now reveals to the girls that Oscar’s real name is Larry Daniels and he’s been on probation for a while. They’ve also found disguises and cash and jewelry in his ice cream cart.
Then Marissa asks Sammy how she knew where Oscar would be, and Sammy says that when she and Marissa were sneaking out the back of the Heavenly and had seen two parallel bike tracks, Sammy realized those marks could also be made by the ice cream cart.
The police walk the girls to the door and they bump into Gina who has come to recover the money. Gina is so pleased, she says she will do Sammy’s birth chart for free. Sammy doesn’t have time to decline politely as Gina rushes into the police station.
Outside, Marissa and Sammy talk about the case and how people are not what they seem, and then Sammy reveals to Marissa Rockin’ Rick’s real identity.
Marissa invites Sammy to stay over and spend the night, but Sammy declines. She wants to go back to her Grams even if it means telling and re-telling the same story over all night.
And Sammy knows that at the end, Grams will blame the whole escapade on the binoculars and make Sammy promise not to use them again…except it’s a promise Sammy knows she “just can’t keep.”
(And thus ends the story!)
Comments & Analysis
Opening: The first thing Tall ’n’ Skinny wanted to do was call “our” parents.
Closing: Then she’ll pull out her boots and my knitting and while I’m sitting there, tangling up wool, she’ll blame everything on the binoculars and make me promise never to use the again. // A promise she knows I just can’t keep.
OTHER COMMENTS
- At the end, using the interview at the police to expose the slueth’s (Sammy’s) reasoning is a great idea. It gives you a lot of information in a dense, effective way, without sounding like “maid-and-butler dialogue.”
FINAL THOUGHTS
Why I Rated This Book 4.67 Stars
I use this criteria to rate every book (out of 6 points per category):
Star ratings:
1 star = Basically, trash. Or worse.
2 stars = Only worth it if you really like the topic.
3 stars = Average.
4 stars = Quite Good.
5 stars = Worth re-reading more than once.
6 stars = Life-changing.
3. Craft ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍
Is this work is well-written, and are the ideas clearly and skillfully presented?
I love VD’s voice, the way she portrays Sammy’s inner thoughts. That has always been a major draw for me to this series, and something I want to learn from, hence this article and the project to analyze the Sammy Keyes book.
VD chooses a unique style for her book, what with the prologue and the first person present. I also find it really interesting how she introduces her characters, how they are shown for the first time to the reader as if the reader knows who they are already.
Often Sammy doesn’t explain a new character much at all when they first “take to the stage,” though she may fill in some background details later. It’s an interesting technique and I think I want to try it.
2. Concept 📖📖📖📖📖
Is this an interesting concept, well-executed? (Are implicit and explicit promises paid off?)
LMA/LDB: This is a Mystery book (quite obviously!). Basically it presents a puzzle that is solved at the end, although the secondary plot with Heather at school might be a bit of an “Adventure” story, like
For a middle-grade novel, this is a solid mystery. Nothing extremely mind-boggling as a surprise, but the author did prime the reader enough so that at the final reveal, some may have got it and others would look back and re-read the first section in a different light.
This is one of the fun and interesting parts of stories, the ability to guess alongside the sleuth and/or be pleasantly surprised at the true answer.
1. Core ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Are the worldview, themes, and arguments of this work true, edifying, and worth learning?
Some of the deeper themes, worldviews, and moral commentary in this book include the commentary on the ideas of parenting and friendship.
From Sammy’s mom abandoning her, to her Grams always being there for her (except for that one night Sammy angered her), to Marissa’s wealthy stock-trading parents mostly leaving her and her brother to their own devices and thinking they can solve all problems by throwing money at them — including their children…
…And even in the minor characters, in this case TJ Maynard and how he is such a deadbeat because his father is just like that.
But the kindness of friends is another important theme in this book and throughout the series. Sammy and Marissa are genuine friends, the kind that is rare and difficult to find/create in this modern world, which contrasts with the obsequious, fawning “friendship” of Heather and her fan-groupie Tenille.
There’s also Sammy’s friendship with Hudson. Although they are generations apart, they treat each other with love and respect, and that is also another rare thing to find in this day and age — a young person and older person befriending each other to each others’ mutual benefit.
The one thing I wasn’t a fan of in this book is Madame Nashira’s astrology. I don’t believe it’s a great idea to introduce kids to the occult at a young age, even in this very faint, offhanded way. And I know Nashira will come back in a future book, so it is what it is.
We’ll see.
LED Assessment
How did this book Lighten, Enlighten, or Delight the reader (that would be moi, in this case, since I’m writing this review ^^)?
This book is a delight. Not so much educational stuff unless you want to count the couple pages where Hudson explains stock content to Sammy.
But the situations, the narration style, and the spunky main character make this book fun to read and the series fun to follow.
Writing Tips & Practical Application
Because learning doesn’t happen until you change something you do…
- Experiment with voice: Take a scene or section from your story and, if it’s not in present first person voice, try rewriting it so that it is, just to see what happens, how it feels, etc. Or try a different kind of POV and see what you can learn from that!
- Plan reasonable red herrings: I am not sure how VD writes, but most mystery authors need to have a pretty good hold on what the answer is and how they will misdirect the reader in the meantime. So if you’re planning a mystery or a story with a mystery subplot, come up with several red herrings, and also think about how they relate to the real answer or to the world of your story.
Want More Detailed Book Notes?
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