Trapped on the D.C. Train! by Ron Roy, a Mysterious Review.

Review: The President's stepdaughter KC and her best friend Marshall accompany the Vice-President on a train trip to Pennsylvania, one that turns out to be more exciting than either kid could have guessed in Trapped on the D.C. Train, the 13th mystery in this series of early reader chapter books by Ron Roy.

The Vice-President is spending the weekend at her horse ranch just an hour by train outside Washington D.C., and invites KC and Marshall along. They're looking forward to getting to the ranch, but first they have a train to explore! For security reasons, they are placed in the final car of the train, a converted caboose. Having already made one successful round-trip to the dining car, the two kids leave the Vice-President with her two Secret Service agents and begin a trek to the front of the train. But when they return, they make a fateful discovery: "KC felt like she was having a nightmare and she'd wake up any second. A whole train car had vanished. And with it, so had the Vice President of the United States!"

Though even young readers may recognize how improbable the storyline in Trapped on the D.C. Train is, it is nevertheless an exciting entry in this series. KC quickly realizes that, as the President's stepdaughter, she may have actually been the target of whoever is behind the disappearance of the caboose, and, not trusting anyone on the train, takes steps to hide — at least until the train reaches its destination and she can try to alert someone on the ground. In addition to enjoying the action, readers will have fun trying to identify the real identities of the many interesting supporting characters in the book.

A two-page "Did You Know?" closes the book, with trivia involving Presidents and trains.

Trapped on the D.C. Train is labeled by the publisher as RL: 2.5 (2nd grade reading level). No Lexile measure has been determined for this book, but others in the series average between 500L and 600L.

A complete list of titles in this series can be found at First Clues: Capital Mysteries.

Acknowledgment: Random House provided a copy of Trapped on the D.C. Train! for this review.

June Jam
Random House (Paperback), March 2011
ISBN-13: 9780375861123; ISBN-10: 0375861122

July Jitters
Random House (Paperback), June 2012
ISBN-13: 9780375868825; ISBN-10: 0375868828

Location(s) referenced in Trapped on the D.C. Train!: Washington DC, Pennsylvania

Trapped on the D.C. Train!

A Capital Mystery by Ron Roy