By Ron Roy
Three friends in a small town chase down clues when a famous mystery writer vanishes before his book signing.
Dink has been counting the days until his favorite author, mystery writer Wallis Wallace, comes to Green Lawn to sign books. Then the big day arrives and the author doesn't. He's just gone, and there's a strange note that makes it look like something's wrong. So Dink and his two best friends, Josh and Ruth Rose, do what any three curious children would do: they start asking questions and following the trail themselves. This is the very first A to Z Mystery, one book for every letter of the alphabet, and it sets the shape the whole series keeps, a real puzzle with real clues, solved by three ordinary friends who notice what the grown-ups miss.
This is the natural step past the shortest first mysteries. The chapters are still short and the print still roomy, but now a single case runs the whole book instead of wrapping up in a few pages, so a child has to hold the clues in their head from one chapter to the next. That's exactly the muscle a growing reader is building. There are twenty-six of these in strict A-B-C order, which is catnip for a child who likes to collect a series, and the three-friend team means there's always someone to be, so nobody reads alone.