I really enjoyed this second installment of the middle grade series.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC.

A cute kids mystery that takes place largely in a fictional historical mansion in Toledo, Ohio.

Sloane and Amelia are charming young self-styled detectives with a YouTube channel whose latest case involves a missing fortune, bootleggers, a dognappjng, and an orchid show.

If these things sound like the mostly don’t go together, well…you’d unfortunately be right. It’s a bit of a tough sell plot-wise to see how these seemingly disparate elements become cogs in a larger machine. The story doesn’t turn out to be all that cohesive, especially the ridiculousness with the dogs and the flowers.

I assume the author is from Toledo, because that’s the only reason I can think of that someone would set a book like this in the area. While it’s true that it was considered a haven for bootleggers during Prohibition, so were a lot of other Great Lakes cities, nearly every one of which is a more interesting place than Toledo. I can’t help but think this would have been a boon to the sense of place for this book, which wasn’t great.

I do think the mystery was largely age-appropriate for the target audience and it’s actually pretty funny the way the author describes Prohibition to kids. And though I thought the family dynamics and backstory were fairly dull and trite, I liked the girls themselves as well as their wacky grannies.

This was a fast and fun read. It picks up where the last book left off. I like that this book focused more on the girls’ growth as they deal with complicated emotions in addition to searching for the two million dollars. I’m loving this series, and I can’t wait to read the next one!

Thank you so much for letting me read this early! When I first requested it, I had no idea it was the second book in a series however but it was easy to follow despite not having read the first book.

I was looking for a good detective story perfect for autumn and this was perfect!

Thank you again!