The Case of the Amazing Zelda by Lewis B. Montgomery, a Mysterious Review.

Review: Detectives in training Milo and Jazz are skeptical of a young girl's pet psychic powers and set out to prove she is for real … or not … in The Case of the Amazing Zelda, the fourth early chapter mystery in this series by Lewis B. Montgomery for young sleuths aged 5 to 7.

The Amazing Zelda really can read the minds of pets — or so it seems. She accurately predicts a number of things that turn out to be true, including the disappearance of Jazz's pet pig, Bitsy. Jazz is unwilling to believe the Amazing Zelda's powers and confronts her, accusing her of pignapping. But when Zelda tells her Bitsy is safe at home, and she is, Jazz's doubts disappear. Still, Milo isn't convinced. Relying on a lesson from world-famous private eye Dash Marlowe, which teaches them to Predict and Test, he comes up with a way to determine once and for all the psychic ability of the Amazing Zelda.

The Case of the Amazing Zelda is quite entertaining, but is also thinly plotted, even for a children's book. To be sure, it is clever in places and at times quite humorous, yet there's a sense that the book is more of a collection of scenes loosely tied together rather than a cohesive story. The subplot (if such a literary device can exist in an early reader book) involving Spencer and his parrot, for example, seems more extraneous than integral. Kids aren't likely to draw these fine distinctions, however, and will enjoy tagging along with Milo and Jazz as they "predict and test" their case against the Amazing Zelda.

The book concludes with several pages of brain teasers, puzzles, and a mini-mystery to solve.

Acknowledgment: The Kane Press provided a copy of The Case of the Amazing Zelda for this review.

The Case of the Poisoned Pig
The Kane Press (Trade Paperback), April 2009
ISBN-13: 9781575652863; ISBN-10: 1575652862

The Case of the Amazing Zelda

The Milo & Jazz Mysteries by Lewis B. Montgomery