A to Z Mysteries – The Ninth Nugget

In Ron Roy's The Ninth Nugget, a week on a Montana dude ranch turns into a gold-rush mystery for 5 year olds.

What happens

Dink, Josh and Ruth Rose fly out to Wheat Ranch for a holiday of horses, campfires and cowboy breakfasts. Jud, the son of the family, picks them up. The ranch isn't making much money these days, and Jud has had to put off going back to college to help.

On the first night a grizzled ranch hand called Thumbs (he's missing one) tells a campfire tale about a mother grizzly who still comes looking for her lost cub. Josh says he isn't scared. Then, in the middle of the night, something very big moves about on their cabin porch...

Next morning everyone pans for gold in the stream. Eight little nuggets turn up, and none of them are Josh's. So he stomps off upstream, falls in with a splash and comes up holding a lump of gold the size of a potato!

The nugget goes into the ranch safe. Then, while most of the group are out on a trail ride, someone in black ties up the cook, opens the safe and takes it.

Who could it be? There's a magician from New York with very nimble fingers, a nurse from Chicago, a pair of honeymooners and Thumbs, who has a habit of creeping up behind people. Josh is SURE he knows. Dink isn't. Ruth Rose wants proof, so the three of them sneak round the guests' cabins while the grown-ups play cards.

It's a really satisfying puzzle for this age. Everybody seems to have an alibi, and Ruth Rose counts them all up before Josh spots the gap. Your reader gets every clue Dink gets. An empty wallet. A stethoscope in a bathroom.

There's plenty of Wild West fun too. Josh learns to ride a horse that only moves when you say please, and he keeps trying to throw a lasso (he mostly misses).

Just so you know, the thief ties up and gags three people, and the bear story is told to give everyone the shivers. It's all played for suspense rather than fright, and nobody is hurt.

What to read next

If they'd like to stay with the same three friends, The Orange Outlaw takes them to Dink's uncle's flat in New York City, where a valuable painting disappears during a street party.