The Case of the Locked Box by Lewis B. Montgomery, a Mysterious Review.

Review: Fifth grade student council president Jazz and her best friend Milo are raising money for the school garden, when Jazz discovers that over $100 is missing from the lockbox in which the funds were placed, in The Case of the Locked Box, the 11th mystery in this series of early chapter mysteries by Lewis B. Montgomery.

Only Jazz and the student council treasurer Omar have keys to the lock that secures the box, but Omar has been home sick all week. With only circumstantial evidence pointing to Jazz taking the money, the school principal suggests that they hold a student trial to determine whether or not she is guilty of the crime, something she embraces, hiring Milo to be her defense attorney.

The Case of the Locked Box is a superior mystery in this series featuring the two amateur sleuths, who take a correspondence course with the world famous Dash Marlowe, whose latest lesson suggests that they re-create the scene of the crime to see if there might be something they missed during their initial investigation. A combination mystery/legal thriller, this is one book that will have its young readers guessing both whodunit and howdunit right up to the very end. Highly recommended.

Each of the books in this series also feature a number of interesting and diverse puzzles and brain-teasers are presented at the end. The ones here tie in nicely with several of the plot points in the story.

As of the date of this review, no Lexile measure has been assigned to this book, though previous books in the series have been assigned values of 420L to 520L. The publisher recommends the book for readers aged 7 to 11, RL: 3.

Acknowledgment: The Kane Press provided a copy of The Case of the Locked Box for this review.

The Case of the Superstar Scam
The Kane Press (Trade Paperback), January 2013
ISBN-13: 9781575655192; ISBN-10: 1575655195

The Case of the Buried Bones
The Kane Press (Trade Paperback), January 2014
ISBN-13: 9781575656410; ISBN-10: 1575656418

The Case of the Locked Box

The Milo & Jazz Mysteries by Lewis B. Montgomery