Book Review: Ginny Gordon and the Broadcast Mystery by Julie Campbell
Virginia “Ginny” Gordon is a 14-year-old high schooler in Harristown, a suburb in Westchester County, New York. She belongs to a club called the Hustlers, who start various business ventures and pass them on when they become successes. The other members are 15-year-old John Blaketon, her childhood friend; 14-year-old Lucy Tryon, her best friend since arriving in Harristown a couple of years ago, and 13-year-old twins Whiz and Babs Reilly, John’s cousins. Right now, they’re running a rental library, the Harristown Book Stall, which is having a used book sale to raise funds for the high school’s library.
The sale is very busy, and Ginny is distracted a bit by an offer to be the emcee of a new radio show, “Author Meets Teen-Age Critics.” So when a rare book that was accidentally donated to the sale goes missing, she can’t be sure if it was sold, discarded with the unsalable junk…or stolen! Worse, the book belongs to the Hustlers’ patron, Mrs. Arnold, an obstreperous old woman who has a listening problem.
Ginny would like to solve the mystery, but one more involvement with a criminal case and the associated danger and her parents are ready to send her to a girls’ seminary for the rest of school. Plus, she’s busy with studying, including extra business classes, trying to arrange a panel for the radio program, running the Stall, and oh yeah she should also practice for basketball season. John lets her know she’s bitten off more than she can chew, and this gets Ginny ticked off with him.
Things start going horribly wrong in all aspects of Ginny’s life, but somehow the show must go on!
This was the last in a series of juvenile mysteries about Ginny and her friends. The author, Julie Tatham, used her maiden name for these books. (She also wrote the early Trixie Belden series and for Cherry Ames & Vicki Barr for a time when Helen Wells was away.) While we’d probably consider them young adult these days, they’re suitable for middle school readers on up.
As mentioned, there’s relatively little sleuthing in this one. The other members of the Hustlers handle that offstage while Ginny goes through her crisis of overcommitment.
Outside Ginny, the characters tend not to be complex, or perhaps Ginny just isn’t paying enough attention.
There’s a couple of subplots. A book titled My Heart’s in the City is a huge bestseller that got rave reviews in all the New York City newspapers. Several copies are circulating around Harristown but it’s less well-received there, as it’s all about how people from small towns in Westchester County are a bunch of narrowminded provincial hicks. This book just keeps coming up and is important in the climax.
Also there’s a new student at school, Chuck Warner, who Ginny does not get along with because he seems to have a chip on his shoulder regarding her. As it happens, he thinks the same of her. This causes some unnecessary friction.
This being the sort of book it is, the mysteries are all solved neatly by the end, and those who have behaved badly have a change of heart. Happy ending!
Well, I am a little annoyed, as someone who vastly prefers living in the city over a small town, that the author of My Heart’s in the City is so easily converted to her fiancé’s viewpoint. It makes the ending come off a bit sexist.
It’s an okay book that may come across as quaint to modern young people. The best bit of period detail is discussion of how local radio broadcasting worked back in the 1950s. Perhaps it may be more thrilling as a nostalgia blast for people who read these books back when they were kids.
