Murdered, My Sweet

by Joan Lowery Nixon

Overview

For fans of Gillian Flynn, Caroline Cooney, and R.L. Stine comes Murdered, My Sweet from four-time Edgar Allen Poe Young Adult Mystery Award winner Joan Lowery Nixon.
 
        Jenny Jakes and her mother, a famous mystery writer, travel to San Antonio to see their cousin, Arnold Harmony, who’s made his fortune in the chocolate business. Harmony, an eccentric millionaire, wants his will read publicly before he dies; since everyone wants a piece of the pie, this announcement causes quite a stir. When Harmony’s son is murdered just before the reading, Jenny’s mother decides to spring into action as a real-life detective. But Jenny’s mother doesn’t have a clue about solving a real crime, so it’s up to Jenny to use her wits, not only to save her mother’s reputation, but also to keep herself from being killed.
 
“Lively characters...(and insightful) humor.” –Publishers Weekly
 
“Another solid Nixon mystery without too much violence and lots of suspense.” –Booklist
 
“Jenny’s covering for her mother is funny.” –Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307538697
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	10/31/2012
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	10 Years

About the Author

Joan Lowery Nixon was the author of more than 130 books for young readers and was the only four-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Best Young Adult Mystery Award. She received the award for The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore, The Séance, The Name of the Game Was Murder, and The Other Side of the Dark, which also won the California Young Reader Medal. Her historical fiction included the award-winning series The Orphan Train Adventures, Orphan Train Children, and Colonial Williamsburg: Young Americans.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One



It 's not easy being related to a woman who's famous for murdering people.

Don't get me wrong. Mom's not a real murderer. She's Madeline Jakes, the most famous mystery writer in the United States maybe the world. She's a good writer, too, I've never met anyone who could read one of Mom's novels late at night and not have to sleep with the bathroom light on.

So many people have seen Mom's picture on the back of her book jackets and watched her being interviewed on TV that they recognize her in public places. "There's Madeline Jakes!" some whisper. Some point. Maybe because they've been watching too much television, I notice some glance around to see if Mom's with the police, helping to solve a murder at that very moment.

Solve a murder? Mom? It's actually funny. My mom is a woman who half the time can't even figure out where she put her car keys or placed her glasses. She rarely remembers birthdays or doctor appointments or speaking engagements unless she's reminded, Mom has never solved a murder in her life, except for the murders in her books. Because she makes those up, she knows from the very beginning "whodunnit." I don't count them.

Try telling that to Mom. She's actually started to believe what she reads about herself, because when fans ask her about real cases she's solved, she doesn't come right out and say, "What cases? The police have never once asked for my help." Instead she smiles as though she has a big secret. She even giggles, which is really gross behavior for a forty-three-year-old woman. When I hear her murmur something about classified information, I want to . . . well, just imagine!

"If I only had the chance, Jenny," Mom said to me recently, "I know I could use my skills as a mystery writer to solve real crimes.

"Mom," I reminded her, "it's your brother who solves real crimes. Uncle Bill's a homicide detective. You're a writer. You use your imagination and your computer to give your fans stories about make--believe murders.''

Mom tapped a pencil against her nose, smiled, and gazed far away. "But if I had the chance to solve a real crime," she insisted, "I know I could."

It wouldn't have done any good to answer. I fought back the resentment that sometimes boils up and threatens to choke me when Mom goes off into her fictional world like one of her own characters. That's when, more than ever, I wish that Dad were still alive, because whenever Mom became a sailboat, Dad was there as an anchor. And sometimes I want to scream at Mom, "You're the mother, not me! You're supposed to be taking care of me! Why do I end up having to take care of you?"

Dad had been an officer in the Air Force, and we were transferred so much we were never able to make friends who were keepers. When I was little it didn't matter to me, because there were always kids around to play with, but Mom likes people and badly wanted friends, so everywhere we went she joined clubs and took classes in whatever was handy. That's how she became interested in writing. She signed up for a class in "How to Write a Mystery Novel," and found as she told us where she truly belonged.

Her books were published, but Mom didn't make much money with them for the first few years. And when Dad's plane crashed, Mom was so heartbroken I thought she'd never be able to write again. But Mom has always had courage and spunk, and one day she told me, "Jenny, if I work hard and write books that people want to read, I know that someday I can make a good life for you.

Maybe Mom knew all along that her books would be best-sellers and she'd be famous. And maybe somewhere inside her all along was the persona that blossomed overnight. A publicist advised her, "Don't go to interviews or talk shows as a pleasant neighbor-next-door. Your public wants to see a writer of mysteries. That means glamour . . . drama . . . pizzazz!"

The chiffon scarves, the drama, and the "darlings" fit Mom like a beautiful new dress. I didn't mind at first. Mom had always been filled with imagination and fun. However, her new personality has a downside. It may be that the glamorous mystery writer is no longer able to handle all the mundane, routine details of life by herself. Or maybe she enjoys leaving them behind and joining the social life of many of the famous people she meets. Whatever the reason, I end up having to do a lot of the mothering. I'm too young to be a mother especially my mother's mother but there's nothing I can do about it.

In spite of having to deal with a mother who spends much of her life in never-never land, I love my mom. I really do, even during the moments when we seem to be trying to drive each other crazy.

When Mom's not mentally off somewhere inside the story she's writing, she's fun to be with, and often, when she goes away on weekends or holidays, for autographings or to give lectures, she takes me with her. I swim in the hotel pool or lie on the beach, and eat great food. When people smile and ask me, "Do you ever help your mother solve mysteries?" I answer, "I'm the one who helps her remember where she's going so she can catch her plane on time."

They think that's a great joke. Unfortunately for me it isn't a joke.

I've always liked to read mysteries. I think it's because I love the challenge of spotting clues and figuring things out. I started reading Nancy Drews when I was seven. I soon graduated into young adult mysteries stacks and stacks of them and now I'm into some of Dad's old Raymond Chandler and John D. MacDonald stories, and Mom's Sue Grafton and Mary Higgins Clark novels.

I'm pretty good at figuring out whodunnit before the last big scene, but Mom never can. At first I thought that her mind went off in directions she'd take if she were writing the story. Or that she got sidetracked by the characters. Or that maybe she became too tangled in motives and means to recognize the crucial clue when she saw it. But I realized what the problem was when, one day, Mom showed me how she developed and put together the parts of a story.

Interviews

Perhaps because I based a mystery on a murder that took place in my own neighborhood because I didn't believe the police had completely solved it (Whispers from the Dead), or perhaps because a great many people were devoted fans of Angela Lansbury's Murder She Wrote, I began to be asked the same question: 'Do the police ask you to help them solve crimes?' The answer was no, of course, but there was always the temptation to allow the questioners to maintain their belief that the police depended upon me wholeheartedly. So I began thinking, What if? What if I were a teenage girl whose mother is a famous mystery writer? What if my mother begins to take herself too seriously? What if my mother and I are present at a family gathering when a real murder takes place and everyone expects my mother to solve it? The problem? My mother can plot a good mystery, but as to solving them, she hasn't a clue. However, I do. My uncle is a homicide detective, and I've learned quite a bit from him. So my task is to solve the crime but save my mother's reputation by letting everyone (including my mother) think she did it.

—Joan Lowery Nixon

Editorial Reviews

An overweening mother who's meant to be scatterbrained and a murder that never matters are at the center of this cliché-filled mystery from Nixon (Search for the Shadowman, 1996, etc.).

Jenny Jakes and her mother, the famous mystery writer Madeline Jakes, are in San Antonio for a visit: A distant cousin, billionaire Arnold Harmony, plans to celebrate his birthday by having his will read aloud to the beneficiaries. His plans are interrupted when his son, Porter, is murdered at the hotel. Madeline's fans believe she can crack the case, but Jenny knows better: Her dithery mother considers herself an expert on the criminal mind, but can't figure out a mystery she didn't create. Instead, Jenny solves the murder, always careful to credit Madeline as the sleuth. The premise of Jenny's covering for her mother is funny, but it goes so smoothly that it becomes boring; when the murder is reported in the newspaper, Jenny's bell-hop romantic interest, Carlos, also ensures that the story spins Madeline's way. Nixon treats the San Antonio setting as a place readers know, dropping names without describing the place; meanwhile, the characters simply chase around inside the hotel. For savvy mystery-lovers, the detective work is sloppy: The murder scene isn't sealed off, the real detective puts up with contemptuous witnesses, and he allows Madeline (and Jenny and Carlos) in on his investigation. That no one thinks to protect Logan, a character who announces that he knows all and is then murdered, is irresponsible.

Kirkus Reviews