Enid Blyton – Mystery 08 – Mystery of the Invisible ThiefOne Hot Summer’s Day“Do you know,” said Pip, “this is the fourth week of the summer holidays – the fourth week, mind – andwe haven’t even heard of a mystery!”“Haven’t even smelt one,” agreed Fatty. “Gosh, this sun is hot. Buster, don’t pant so violently – you’remaking me feel even hotter!”Buster crawled into a patch of shade, and lay down … into a patch of shade, and lay down with a thump. His tongue hung out as he panted.
Bets patted him.
“Poor old Buster! It must be frightful to have to wear a fur coat in this weather – one you can’t even
unbutton and have hanging open!”
“Don’t suggest such a thing to Buster,” said Fatty. “He’d look awful.”
“Oh dear – it’s too hot even to laugh,” said Daisy, picturing Buster trying to undo his coat to leave it
open.
“Here we are – all the Five Find-Outers – and Dog,” said Larry, “with nothing to find out, nothing to
solve, and eight weeks to do it in! Fatty, it’s a waste of the hols. Though even if we had a mystery I think
I’d be too hot to think about Clues and Suspects and what-nots.”
The five children lay on their backs on the grass. The sun poured down on them. They all wore as little
as possible, but even so they were hot. Nobody could bear poor Buster near them for more than two
seconds, because he absolutely radiated heat.
“Whose turn is it to fetch the iced lemonade?” said Larry….
more
I first learned of this title and the series of which it’s a part from a post on a blog that deals with mystery fiction. Between the ages of 7 and 10 or 11, I had read my share of books from the Hardy Boys’ series before graduating to adult authors including Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Erle Stanley Gardner, but had yet to encounter an impossible crime mystery, let alone one fairly-clued and aimed at juvenile readers. The blog post rendered it an imperative that I check out this one, and I was fortunate to find an epub version to download. (More about that later.)
This entry in the phenomenally prolific British author Enid Blyton’s series starring the so-called “Five Find-Outers” opens when the children so named are depicted as yearning for a mystery to solve during their summer vacation from school, having solved several in their English village of Peterswood during previous school holidays with, I inferred from references to their prior cases and a Wikipedia entry, the approval of the district’s Inspector Jenks as well as the disapproval of local constable Mr. Goon, the latter being one whom the children frequently embarrass by outwitting. (<--I’d like to think Henry James and William Faulkner would approve of that sentence.) Inspector Jenks is in the neighborhood because his goddaughter Hilary is participating in in gymkhana at local Petters Field. When it turns out that Hilary’s home has been robbed, the Five are frustrated because they aren’t immediately invited by Jenks to investigate. They eventually do so uninvited, of course, and learn that although the housekeeper was present during the theft and in a position to see whence the thief departed, she saw nothing of the sort. Two more thefts ensue before the Five, whose names I’m not going to list here—see the Wikipedia entry if you’re curious about them—will solve the case and its seeming impossibilities to the satisfaction of local authorities. I have little doubt experienced mystery readers will solve the whodunit and howdunit elements as easily as I did. Ms. Blyton did not engage in the kind of brilliant misdirection you find in John Dickson Carr, Agatha Christie, and other Golden Age giants. I thought the book got off to a slow start, but once the children began their investigations, it moved along nicely and proved to be a pleasant, if not exactly dazzling (for an adult), entertainment. The downside to the epub version is that whoever converted the book to the digital format decided that original publication information is unnecessary: no title or copyright pages, only a cover and then the story itself. The same person also decided that except for periods, commas, and question marks, other punctuation is unnecessary: e.g., there are no quotation marks around dialogues, and no apostrophes in contractions. I saw an Amazon review complaining about the same problems in the Kindle edition, so it’s a reasonable to assume that the digital version was created by the same person in multiple formats. This was all very annoying, as you can imagine, but I had relatively little difficulty getting through the book in spite of it. But if you prefer actual books and are a mystery-reading kid at heart, search out the hardback or paperback edition. © 2019 Barry Ergang