The Mystery of Holly Lane

Enid Blyton's The Mystery of Holly Lane is a Find-Outers detective story for 9 year olds that kicks off with the wrong man being marched to the wrong front door.

What happens

Fatty's coming home at the end of term and the others go to meet his train. They get there late. Fatty's nowhere to be seen.

So they decide he must be in disguise. They follow a bundled-up man in thick glasses who keeps asking for a house called Grintriss. Then, very pleased with themselves, they lead him straight up Fatty's own drive.

It isn't Fatty (Buster knew better, and waited at the station for the right train). The poor man really is French, really does have a bad cold, and only wants his sister's house.

Fatty sorts it all out in perfect French. Grintriss turns out to be Green-Trees, a pretty little house down Holly Lane.

With no case to work on yet, Fatty sets everyone a dare. Larry has to go out as a window-cleaner. Pip has to shadow Mr Goon the village policeman without being spotted. Fatty will sell Goon a ticket for the Church Sale.

How do you get a grumpy policeman to buy a ticket from a Find-Outer? Fatty turns up at his house as an old foreign lady and reads his palm. And in it he sees a big fat boy he should beware of!

That's the real pleasure of these books. You're in on the joke and Goon isn't, and the disguises are as much fun as any clue.

There's trouble brewing too. Goon finds Buster in a field of sheep and decides he's been chasing them. Then Fatty, still in disguise, hears Goon offering a boy half a crown to catch some dog (and doesn't realise it's his own).

This is book eleven in the series, so the friends come with plenty of history. They even remember Superintendent Jenks from when he was a plain Inspector.

It's worth knowing this is a very old-fashioned book. Fatty's weight is a running joke and Goon has a "great fat paw". Fatty talks made-up foreign gibberish as part of his disguise, and the Frenchman's accent is there to be laughed at. Goon also threatens to have Buster shot, which might upset a reader who loves dogs, although Fatty promises straight away that it won't happen.

If your reader can take that in their stride, there's lots of warm, silly fun here.

What to read next

And if you'd rather start right at the beginning, The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage is where these five first come together, on the night a thatched workroom goes up in flames.