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Rescuing Seneca Crane A Kari and Lucas Mystery Susan Runholt 9780670062911 Books

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Rescuing Seneca Crane A Kari and Lucas Mystery Susan Runholt 9780670062911 Books

Great mystery for pre-teen and teen girls. Runholt likes to incorporate international travel and girl empowerment into the Kari and Lucas books. In this book, the girls travel to Scotland and try to help a girl their age who happens to be a famous pianist. Fun and exciting.


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Rescuing Seneca Crane A Kari and Lucas Mystery Susan Runholt 9780670062911 Books Reviews

Here is perhaps the finest praise I can offer a series when the third book comes out, I'll be all over it even though I probably won't review it here. There are plenty of other books for us to chat about, Esteemed Reader, but I'll be listening to book three, The Adventure of Simba Hill, just for me. I want to know what happens to Kari and Lucas and I want to see what Runholt's going to do to top these first two wonderful books. If you haven't read Runholt's mysteries yet, get started now and we can wait for book three together.

That officially concludes the review portion of this review buy these books. Now let's talk craft. A good series is hard to pull off, yet so many writers have ambitions for one, including the ninja. As a writer, part of the appeal to the series is a multi-book contract. But more, I suspect the joy in writing a series is the same joy the reader has in getting to spend more time with the same characters and experiencing a story larger than one book can contain. Whether that series is a Harry Potter story that is interconnected and building parts to a larger whole, telling one story over seven books. Or whether, as is the case here (so far), the books in the series are each self contained adventures like Batman stories or a television show. I like both kinds of series, but my preference is for episodic tales so that if one book sucks (not the case here) it doesn't drag down the rest)

Regardless of the type of series, the pressure is on the writer to create fantastic characters. This is a pressure the writer always feels as we've got to create fictional people interesting and likeable enough that the reader wants to spend a whole book with them. In a series, the reader may be spending seven books or more with these characters. So take the pressure of creating one book's character and multiply it by seven, I suppose. Kari and Lucas, two 14-year old girls from Minnesota, are definitely likeable enough for the reader to want to spend four books with them. Heck, I'll spend more books with Kari and Lucas if Runholt is up to it.

More, Kari and Lucas have the sort of qualities that will make them compelling protagonists regardless of the mystery facing them. They are curious about the world and the motivations of people. This is an essential quality for any detective to have, but Runholt doesn't just tell us this (perish the thought!). She establishes the girls' curiosity in Mystery of the Third Lucretia. At an art museum in Minneapolis, the girls are treated rudely by a man copying a Rembrandt. When they see him later wearing a disguise, they decide to follow him and from this action flows the entire adventure that follows. What a masterful stroke this is! Though the girls remain very curious in Rescuing Seneca Crane as well, the subject of that book is a kidnapping of their friend, which one hardly need be curious to notice and be concerned with. But in the very first book of the series, this essential character quality of Kari and Lucas is forever established throughout the series because it is essential to the plot (and the plot comes from character, so bonus). The girls are insufferably curious, which might just get them killed were there not a third book on the way)

In fact, most of Runholt's world building in Mystery of the Third Lucretia is clearly being built to last. Various parts of the plot, though they tie in to the first adventure, go out of their way to establish the set up for future novels. Minor spoiler... Kari's mom gets a job writing about international fashion for a magazine, which means she'll need to do a lot of traveling, dragging the girls around Europe with her. As these are international mysteries, you can bet that will come in handy. Also, we're introduced to Lucas's father, a workaholic who never makes time for her, and her mother, who would much rather be free of her child so she can spend more time shopping with friends. While this sucks for Lucas, it's great for Runholt because it means Lucas will always be free to go globetrotting with Kari and her mother.

The Kari + Lucas Mysteries are considered upper middle grade, or tween, which presents an interesting challenge to writers. On the one hand, the characters are old enough to have been exposed to many of the less savory aspects of the adult world. On the other hand, kids read up, and it's likely a given that kids as young as ten or even eight will be reading in addition to fourteen-year-olds and adult ninjas. And the covers of these books, not that a writer always has a say in that, are bright and colorful and likely to attract readers of all ages.

What then is a writer to do? How does she acknowledge the age of the protagonists, who would probably swear and talk about naughty things at fourteen (or maybe I was just warped) without risking a younger readership? One of my favorite of Runholt's inventions to get around this is her giving the girls their own way of swearing. When the girls want to swear, they insert a "meep" for the swear, as in "Oh meep," "I feel like meep," and my favorite, "Alan The Meep." It's important to remember that it is the age of the reader, not of the protagonist that determines content. After all, the protagonist in Amy Reed's Beautiful was only thirteen.

A common complaint of mine is that too often in middle grade books the horror is not really scary, the danger isn't really all that dangerous, and the mystery isn't much of a challenge. As a ninja, I keep reading, but when I was kid I put a book down as soon as I felt its writer was being condescending(i.e. trying to convince me a rabbit sucking carrot juice was scary, though I loved that book). I wouldn't have put Runholt's book down. There is a reason Kari and Lucas are fourteen instead of ten. They're dealing with some pretty serious stuff, and though Runholt keeps the story light and fun, she deals rather realistically with the world around it.

If Lucas and Kari were younger, they might be dealing with the mystery of the stolen cookie jar. But Runholt has loftier plans. In the first book, the girls are hot on the tail of an international art forgery that would be at home in a Dan Brown thriller (assuming there were a pseudo-religious twist), and in the second book, they're chasing after kidnappers that might make William Kent Krueger proud. The girls censor themselves, but the villains don't behave as though they know they're in a story written for younger readers. There are murders and discussions of rape (all tactfully handled, I promise). In one scene, the girls tour Amsterdam's Red Light district and are mistaken for, ahem, madams of the evening. Some parents may object to this, and if that's you, go ahead and object. I, for one, was thrilled to have found a mystery that was truly exciting involving dangers that were actually dangerous.

I see we are past our maximum word count and I haven't really told you the plot of either book, but that's a good thing. The less you know going in, the more pleasantly surprised you'll be. But I will say how much I appreciated the pacing at the beginning of Rescuing Seneca Crane. We know who the characters are and how it is they come to be able to travel overseas, so Runholt is able to start the adventure and keep it going to the last page.

And that wraps us up. Two big thumbs up for the Kari + Lucas mysteries!
Kari and Lucas are staying in Edinburgh, Scotland with Kari's mom. She writes for a magazine that wants her to do a piece on Seneca Crane. Seneca is only fifteen years old but a renowned concert pianist.

Kari and Lucas spend some time with Seneca and the three quickly become friends. They are glad that Seneca is just a normal girl like them without any celebrity airs. But when Seneca talks about her life, she says she isn't normal. She doesn't have a life; she has a schedule. With that in mind, Kari and Lucas try to do normal things they think Seneca will enjoy.

When Seneca disappears after a concert performance, Kari and Lucas are stunned. The perpetrators left a note; Seneca has been kidnapped and the ransom is high. When Kari and Lucas are babysitting a young boy that same evening, they get their first clue. Parker, the young boy, saw two men take Seneca and overhead them saying she was going to the dollhouse castle in the sky.

Lucas and Kari want to help and they know they can't call the police. The ransom note said any police interference, and Seneca would die, so they start their own investigation. With Lucas's credit card, and Kari's organized thoughts, they find themselves in danger, Scotland Mist, and a mystery about to unravel.

RESCUING SENECA CRANE is an enjoyable and entertaining read. Kari and Lucas are very mature teenagers, but yet we get a glimpse of their innocence of youth as well. The mystery surrounding Seneca is tenacious, and the pages just fly by as you take part in their adventure. A wonderful read for children and young adults.
best book ever loved it read it if you like to be on the edge of your seat!!
hope she makes another one to the series
Great mystery - I love the characters!
Great mystery for pre-teen and teen girls. Runholt likes to incorporate international travel and girl empowerment into the Kari and Lucas books. In this book, the girls travel to Scotland and try to help a girl their age who happens to be a famous pianist. Fun and exciting.