“Oh, you mean there’s a ghost as well as a skeleton in everyone’s cupboard.”

43. Just Pretend – J.V. Lewton

Foxpath Lake has secrets and some people are willing to let some despicable things happen to little girls to keep them. Clay, the touch-psychic with a very vibrant through her leukemia little sister, and Hillary, a rich girl who actually cares about kids and hosts a segment on her radio show just for them called “Just Pretend,” are taking up the mantle of junior investigators to solve a murder and find the last girl who was kidnapped before she’s murdered. They of course slip into some real trouble with the officer who patrols the lake, a newspaper lady who smells a story, and the retired high school guidance counselor who lives on the lake as well. Oh, and will Hillary’s parents get a divorce once her dad gets back from wherever he is? Will Clay’s mom stop being so delusional about his absent father? Somehow Clay and Hillary never talk about their absent fathers, it seems they’re concentrating on falling in love through the investigation an both of them mention they don’t have much in common…but the absent father thing is kind a of big thing to have in common, kids.

Just Pretend is very much a neighborhood story. There are a lot of characters, but they’re all very settled into this landscape – except the newspaper lady, who is an outside catalyst to break past what these locals think they know and what Clay and Hillary missed. I would say it’s because they never had a research scene, but this case was too contemporary for a research scene, that’s only a downer for me. In lieu of research there was mostly a lot of staring at the lake, sometimes with psychic phenomena, sometimes not.

 

Danger Crumples knows how to be an outside catalyst to break a mystery right open – he uses his gorgeous guinea pig charm. Never fails.

 

They didn’t even try bribing any of the lake denizens. Danger Crumples knows that’s a good way to solve a mystery.
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