The Automobile Girls At Washington Or Checkmating the Plots of Foreign Spies

The Automobile Girls #6

by Laura Dent Crane

Barbara Thurston stood at the window of a large old-fashioned house, looking out into Connecticut Avenue. It was almost dark. An occasional light twinkled outside in the street, but the room in which Barbara was stationed was still shrouded in twilight. Suddenly she heard a curtain at the farther end of the drawing-room rustle faintly. Bab turned and saw a young man standing between the curtains, peering into the shadows with a pair of near-sighted eyes. Barbara started. The stranger had entered the room through a small study that adjoined it. He seemed totally unaware of any other presence, for he was whistling softly: "Kathleen Mavourneen."

Genres: Mystery

158 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1913

Reviews

[Ellen Hamilton]

Although this book is part of a series, it can be read as a standalone quite easily; the pleasure is not diminished in any way. I enjoyed it very much, and I look forward to reading the other books in the series.

My only one regret is that Peter Dillon doesn't turn out to be... well, what I hoped he was; he was quite a likable character and would have been very fun.

I was glad that things turned out alright for the Hamlins, and the ending surprised me, given that I do not know what happened in the previous books.

All in all, I loved it. I know it may seem strange for me to "love" so many books and give them all five-star ratings, but it's just that I know very well what types of books give me the most pleasure to read and I mostly read only those types. I try to stay away from books I do not like and thus save myself a whole lot of disagreeable emotions, thoughts, and feelings (and ratings and reviews)!

Also, I'm not that hard to please. Give me a well-written, clean, vintage-ish, fiction with humour, gladness, sadness (anything that tugs at my heartstrings), as well as some mystery/romance/adventure thrown in, and I will probably end up loving it.

[Surreysmum]

This is the sixth of Crane's cheerful teen detective/adventure series, and the second made available in the Greatest Mystery Collection e-reader anthology. Set in the US (in this case the capital), it tells a delightfully unlikely story of four naive teenage girls and their adult associates getting mixed up in a spy plot which involves a plausible young man and the Chinese Ambassador, who comes complete with a vaguely sinister family, including a very subdued teenage girl to act as a foil to the relatively liberated Americans. Along with the improbabilities, the life lessons - in this book, mostly to do with spending beyond your means and the horrors of debt - are brought home but with a reasonably light touch. Babs, the heroine on the cusp of womanhood, is a charming girl, not too goody-goody - and we are assured of her eventual safety from all life's traps because of her good angel in the form of the rich Mr. Stuart. Mr. Stuart's daughter Ruth is the owner and driver of the automobile that gives the series its name, and which gives the young adventurers their freedom in the big world, though less so in this novel than in others. In any case, from a feminist perspective it's a very interesting portrait of the up-to-date young woman of the turn of the 20th century in America. I do like the fact that there are numerous complementary and contrasting female characters in a female-dominated plot. While the men are responsible for the Washington politics and diplomacy, all the actual movers of the plot - including the older villainness, the plucky newspaper reporter making her way, and the politician's daughter who needs resolution for her debts and her relationship with her father - are female. Refreshing and fun. I think, too, this is a plausible ancestor for the Nancy Drew series.

[Debbie Smith]

Where I got this book, I am not sure. It appears appears to the 6th book of a series. The story of four girls foiling a plot of spies.
It a quaint little story which was copyright in 1913, targeted toward young teens from a different time. A time of innocence and fancy clothing and evidently dangerous foreign spies.

[Jennifer Booth]

Not bad for an all girl jaunt

It was a little silly mixed with an equal amount of adventure. It was easy to get around with no over doing.