The Case of the Nervous Newsboy

McGurk Mystery #3

by E.W. Hildick

Ten-year-old Jack McGurk and his fellow detectives match wits with the local police as they track down a runaway newsboy.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Childrens, Juvenile, Realistic Fiction

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

E.W. (Edmund Wallace) Hildick was a British children's book author. He was born in Bradford, England in 1925. After two years service in the Royal Air Force he became a secondary school teacher, then a writer, later moving to the United States to become editor of a literary magazine. He died in London in 2001.

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

A group of 10-year-olds have their own detective agency and solve neighborhood mysteries. This time around the titular newsboy goes missing, and the police end up interviewing the kids because they were among the last to see him before he disappeared.

When a police lieutenant is dismissive of their offer of aid, Jack P. McGurk, the leader, decides to go around him and solve the case first.

The first half wasn't too bad, but the closer it got to its convoluted resolution, the more my interest flagged.

This is another old children's book that has been in my wife's or my family since the 1970s. It's book number four in a series with more than two dozen adventures, but it is the only book by the author we own, so it must not have had much appeal fifty years ago either.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

What starts out as a routine training day on how to shadow a suspect, quickly turns into a search for a missing person. The McQurk Detective Organization while using Simon Emmet, the newsboy, as their suspect soon learns that he has suddenly disappeared, and now they must find him.

[Ardyth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our 8yo was riveted for this book's week of bedtime reading. It's a mystery with stakes. He asked me to buy others from the series. He asked about unfamiliar vocabulary while we were reading (this rarely happens) -- like "Mom, what does a hardening face mean?"

The grown ups of the tale, as is typical of a juvenile mystery, miss very important things and draw wrong conclusions. Here, this is not because they are fools or incompetent, but because they think they know the people in question when they actually do not... the adults assume, and make behavioral choices based on those [incorrect] assumptions. Rings true to life, tbh.

Out of print, no Kindle edition, so I can't get the others. For those of you who can... FYI the glue in our 1976 printing was falling out with each page turn. There isn't much life left in these, I think? For a mystery loving elementary kid, I'd grab a cheap copy from the series if I saw one, counting myself lucky if it survives one read.

[MisterFweem · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://misterfweem.blogspot.com/2015/...

Not necessarily a review, just some ponderings.