Eric Wilson (2) (1940–)

Liz Austen is on PEI for a softball tournament. Her team’s early exit is a disappointment, but she’s got other entertainment in the form of a murder mystery weekend at Green Gables. She befriends a Japanese girl, Makiko, and they team up to solve the case. But the fictional murder mystery soon turns deadly for real. Is this a case that the girls can solve?

I first read this in middle school, likely just a year or so after my own trip to PEI, so I probably enjoyed it for that reason. It is a pretty dark mystery for middle-grade fiction, or at least darker than I remembered. I laughed and cringed a bit at Liz’s first-person narration; sometimes she was outspoken in socially awkward ways that reminded me of my 12-year-old self, especially the bordering-on-condescending way she explains things to people who might not know them. (I thought I knew EVERYTHING when I was 12.)

This book was first published in 1987 and shows its age in the absence of cellphones, computers, and internet. That said, the actual plot of the mystery doesn’t really hinge on them, so I think it holds up overall. Where it holds up less is in some of the dialogue involving Makiko; she speaks in some broken English, and some of the locals’ interactions with her are a bit othering. I think a novel of this type written today would have more nuance.… (more)

Past Me would probably rate this book 3 stars. It’s an OK mystery for the age group I was in at the time of reading (preteen), and it moves at a very fast clip.

Present Me finds the setup reasonably plausible for Liz to be able to go sleuthing without her parents, and wonders why the Liz books are first person while the Tom Austen books are in third person. The writing is a bit over-explanatory in places, but not excessively so. The vampire story is a bit over-the-top for this reader, but others may find it amusing.… (more)

Tom Austen is in Québec for a hockey tournament that coincides with Carnaval. And murder coincides with his tournament. Tom is no stranger to sleuthing, but even he might find the idea of world superpowers and chemical weapons to be a daunting one.

I read this as an 11-year-old and it’s always been my favourite of the Tom and Liz Austen mysteries. High literature it ain’t, and there are definitely some logic gaps that I imagine savvier 11-year-olds today would roll their eyes at, but I do love imagining being in Québec at Carnaval time: the snow, the ice sculptures, the icebreakers on the river, the glorious Château Frontenac… And if you want wish-fulfillment fiction as a preteen, it doesn’t get much better than this, with Tom routinely going off on his own despite being, what, 11 himself, and solving a high-stakes case just like the grownups.

This was first published in 1989 so there are some dated instances of technology, such as the “aerial for a cellular phone” on a suspicious car and the primitive state of online searches (I’m amazed that one character even had a computer, to be honest). This probably wouldn’t do much for a kid today, but for this ageing kid, it hit the spot.… (more)