What do you think?
Secret of Haunted Mesa
Used Young Adult Novel
144 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
About the author
Phyllis A. Whitney
185 books585 followersPhyllis Ayame Whitney (1903 – 2008) was an American mystery writer. Rare for her genre, she wrote mysteries for both the juvenile and the adult markets, many of which feature exotic locations. A review in The New York Times once dubbed her "The Queen of the American Gothics".
She was born in Japan to American parents and spent her early years in Asia. Whitney wrote more than seventy novels. In 1961, her book The Mystery of the Haunted Pool won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Juvenile novel, and she duplicated the honor in 1964, for The Mystery of the Hidden Hand. In 1988, the MWA gave her a Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement. Whitney died of pneumonia on February 8, 2008, aged 104.
She was born in Japan to American parents and spent her early years in Asia. Whitney wrote more than seventy novels. In 1961, her book The Mystery of the Haunted Pool won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Juvenile novel, and she duplicated the honor in 1964, for The Mystery of the Hidden Hand. In 1988, the MWA gave her a Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement. Whitney died of pneumonia on February 8, 2008, aged 104.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 25, 2023
Phyllis A. Whitney wrote wonderful mysteries for children and young adults which were always more than the sum of their parts. She was wonderfully adept at weaving into her stories of mystery gentle life lessons that always made you feel like you were richer and had more understanding of the adult world by the time you’d turned the last page, making you a tiny bit closer to being an adult. Most of her stuff is 5-star as far as I’m concerned. The combination of old-fashioned values, her insight into the feelings of young ones struggling to grow up and understand what it was all about, and entertaining mysteries that while gentle, had in them just enough intrigue to hold your interest, marked her books for pre-teens and teenagers as special, as they remain today.
I didn’t recall this one, but thanks to a good friend who sent it to me as a gift, I was able to read and enjoy it recently. While it very much has the elements mentioned above, this one has a caveat for me, which I’ll get to near the end of the review. This one is set in New Mexico where Jenny travels with her family to Haunted Mesa Ranch, because her father is speaking at a conference there. Jenny immediately begins to soak up the mysterious southwest. Already dealing with an older and talented sister who sings, she is struggling to find her own place and be noticed. She meets a boy named Greg who might be of help, but he’s also a bit volatile for some reason. Then items begin disappearing, small snake carvings left in their place, and a mystery presents itself.
The mystery focuses on the Zuñi tribe, deeply religious Pueblo Indians. Young Charlie Curtis is such, but then why is he stealing and leaving small carvings in place of the stolen items? More importantly — or it should be — why is he alone? Or is he alone? He’s just a child, after all.
Enter Señor Consuelo, a widow still mourning the passing of her husband, who was a great friend to the Zuñi people. In the lovely Señor Consuelo, Jenny seems to have found a friend who understands what it’s like to be her age, and rarely be noticed in the shadow of a talented and headstrong older sister. What should be done about Charlie Curtis and the thefts? How Whitney deals with the subject matter on this occasion is the big caveat for me. There is no way to explore it without minor spoilers, so be forewarned.
Whitney, even back in ’75, had fallen into that liberal hive-mind that by making common-sense laws to live by, other races, such as the Zuñi and other Indians, are being oppressed. Understanding of the differences between cultures, how they operate, is commendable, and latitude must be given at certain times and under certain circumstances. That’s common sense as well. But — and it’s a big but — Whitney went too far here, and though she could unrealistically tie it all up nicely in a big pretty bow, the reality is much different, and worse, this story teaches children the wrong life-lesson.
The decision to not bring in the police, but rather on their own try to understand just what is going on here with Charlie, why he is stealing minor things and heading up to the mesa is understandable on Jenny’s part at her age, and even the adult Señor Consuelo. But then a museum is broken into, a glass case smashed and something taken. Even the fact that it is out of character and culture for a young Zuñi boy to go off on his own, independent of his family and tribe, much less break and enter and steal, does not prompt the adults to call police and let them help. This book was written 7 years after the Indian Police Training and Research Center had been put in place in Roswell, training officers to serve in tribal communities, so just a big fat no on this irresponsible inaction.
If that wasn’t enough for the adults to reach a tipping point — mainly Consuelo, who seemed to be perhaps mirroring Whitney’s own attitudes — what happened next should have. Señor Consuelo’s home is broken into at night, and valuable dolls taken. Worse, Jenny surprises the intruder and it is an adult, not young Charlie. Not only that, but he roughly casts Jenny to the ground in his haste to get away. She could easily have been hurt. Worse, now you have a young Zuñi boy breaking tradition, and working with an adult to steal. That escalates this, and it screams for intervention by police; if for no other reason, the boy’s safety, because there is at this point no clear idea of what’s going on. But nope, more waiting, more of the white-man-has-done-enough-damage-already nonsense. And it is nonsense, because this story ties in with dementia, and someone putting not only himself in danger, but others.
As I mentioned, Whitney tied this up in a nice bow, which is fine for a crime story or romance that’s complete fiction. But Whitney was known in her wonderful children’s mysteries to weave in very real, true-to-life, life-lessons. The message she weaved in here to not bring in police when the situation obviously warranted it is flat-out wrong. Liberal-hive-mind wrong. In real life, this could have, and perhaps even most likely would have, led to harm coming to the very aged person suffering from bouts of living in the distant past, and to a boy much too young to be taking care of him alone, far from home, while trying to keep him out of trouble.
I enjoyed Secret of Haunted Mesa for its wonderful blend of mystery and that bridging of the adult world with that of the young person — something Whitney did better than anyone for many years. Jenny makes an adult friend, grows personally, and stops envying her older sister, finding her own path. But some of the lessons she was taught along the way — by supposedly responsible adults — forces me to take away a star.
I didn’t recall this one, but thanks to a good friend who sent it to me as a gift, I was able to read and enjoy it recently. While it very much has the elements mentioned above, this one has a caveat for me, which I’ll get to near the end of the review. This one is set in New Mexico where Jenny travels with her family to Haunted Mesa Ranch, because her father is speaking at a conference there. Jenny immediately begins to soak up the mysterious southwest. Already dealing with an older and talented sister who sings, she is struggling to find her own place and be noticed. She meets a boy named Greg who might be of help, but he’s also a bit volatile for some reason. Then items begin disappearing, small snake carvings left in their place, and a mystery presents itself.
The mystery focuses on the Zuñi tribe, deeply religious Pueblo Indians. Young Charlie Curtis is such, but then why is he stealing and leaving small carvings in place of the stolen items? More importantly — or it should be — why is he alone? Or is he alone? He’s just a child, after all.
Enter Señor Consuelo, a widow still mourning the passing of her husband, who was a great friend to the Zuñi people. In the lovely Señor Consuelo, Jenny seems to have found a friend who understands what it’s like to be her age, and rarely be noticed in the shadow of a talented and headstrong older sister. What should be done about Charlie Curtis and the thefts? How Whitney deals with the subject matter on this occasion is the big caveat for me. There is no way to explore it without minor spoilers, so be forewarned.
Whitney, even back in ’75, had fallen into that liberal hive-mind that by making common-sense laws to live by, other races, such as the Zuñi and other Indians, are being oppressed. Understanding of the differences between cultures, how they operate, is commendable, and latitude must be given at certain times and under certain circumstances. That’s common sense as well. But — and it’s a big but — Whitney went too far here, and though she could unrealistically tie it all up nicely in a big pretty bow, the reality is much different, and worse, this story teaches children the wrong life-lesson.
The decision to not bring in the police, but rather on their own try to understand just what is going on here with Charlie, why he is stealing minor things and heading up to the mesa is understandable on Jenny’s part at her age, and even the adult Señor Consuelo. But then a museum is broken into, a glass case smashed and something taken. Even the fact that it is out of character and culture for a young Zuñi boy to go off on his own, independent of his family and tribe, much less break and enter and steal, does not prompt the adults to call police and let them help. This book was written 7 years after the Indian Police Training and Research Center had been put in place in Roswell, training officers to serve in tribal communities, so just a big fat no on this irresponsible inaction.
If that wasn’t enough for the adults to reach a tipping point — mainly Consuelo, who seemed to be perhaps mirroring Whitney’s own attitudes — what happened next should have. Señor Consuelo’s home is broken into at night, and valuable dolls taken. Worse, Jenny surprises the intruder and it is an adult, not young Charlie. Not only that, but he roughly casts Jenny to the ground in his haste to get away. She could easily have been hurt. Worse, now you have a young Zuñi boy breaking tradition, and working with an adult to steal. That escalates this, and it screams for intervention by police; if for no other reason, the boy’s safety, because there is at this point no clear idea of what’s going on. But nope, more waiting, more of the white-man-has-done-enough-damage-already nonsense. And it is nonsense, because this story ties in with dementia, and someone putting not only himself in danger, but others.
As I mentioned, Whitney tied this up in a nice bow, which is fine for a crime story or romance that’s complete fiction. But Whitney was known in her wonderful children’s mysteries to weave in very real, true-to-life, life-lessons. The message she weaved in here to not bring in police when the situation obviously warranted it is flat-out wrong. Liberal-hive-mind wrong. In real life, this could have, and perhaps even most likely would have, led to harm coming to the very aged person suffering from bouts of living in the distant past, and to a boy much too young to be taking care of him alone, far from home, while trying to keep him out of trouble.
I enjoyed Secret of Haunted Mesa for its wonderful blend of mystery and that bridging of the adult world with that of the young person — something Whitney did better than anyone for many years. Jenny makes an adult friend, grows personally, and stops envying her older sister, finding her own path. But some of the lessons she was taught along the way — by supposedly responsible adults — forces me to take away a star.
October 19, 2019
I don't know if i was reading a different book but it's not the blurb that's for sure! It was interesting and tense to read but great completely from the point of view of Mike Raglan a man who made a living debunking the paranormal and experiencing the scary atmosphere near there Mexican haunted Mesa was interesting but confusing.
I kind of lost interest after a while..
I kind of lost interest after a while..
April 12, 2018
As a middle and high school librarian I frequently read books at a lower level than I normally read. I have always loved Phyllis Whitney though and have read all of her adult books. This was an interesting story at a level more for middle school readers. I enjoyed it because it takes place in New Mexico where I live and gave good insight to traditions of the Zuni people.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews