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The 100-Year-Old Secret

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The Hundred-Year-Old Secret
By Tracy Barrett
Henry Holt, 2008. Fiction. 157 p.

This first book in The Sherlock Files has Xena and Xander Holmes, two American kids just arriving in London with the parents to live for a year, find out they are descendants of the great mastermind Sherlock Holmes himself, and because of that, they are inducted into the Society for the Preservation of Famous Detectives. When they are given Sherlock’s unsolved casebook, the two of them decide to see if with modern technology they could solve what Sherlock could not. Their first case: to find the missing painting Girl in a Purple Hat.

Good pacing and presentable clues for readers to follow make this a delightful fast read for any mystery reader. The audio rendition, available on Overdrive, would make it a good road trip listen for families with upper elementary kids while being entertaining enough for the adults as well.
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Ms. Yingling said…
I'll have to dust this one off for the 6th graders today. I like the series, since all four books are short and fun. Thanks for the reminder!
February 8, 2016 at 3:13 AM
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