Thoughts before reading:
THE LAST ONE!! I won't be sad to see these go, and I won't be reading any of them again! I will definitely revisit other BSC books from time to time, but I can't see myself checking any of these out again, and this is probably the only "last" of this project that won't make me a little sad.
The basics:
Kristy's babysitting for Karen and David Michael, enjoying a lazy summer day outside together. Karen wants to go see a house in the woods nearby that she thinks is spooky, and Kristy agrees to take them. Just after they arrive at the place, however, there's a loud noise like a shot. Before they can react much, the police are there. Sgt. Johnson is one of them (of course). Kristy's relieved to see him, but he in turn scolds her for being at a crime scene (finally a normal reaction!), and puts the kids in the back of his car.
While waiting there, they can see and hear most of what's taking place outside. More cops arrive, and a man who says he's the security guard for the property, claiming he had only just stepped away. He checks the vault inside and confirms there's been a burglary... some diamonds are missing. Both he and Sgt. Johnson also received weird phone calls right before the incident. The house is owned by a man named Reinhart Golem, who's hardly ever there. Fenton, the security guard, says he's a loner who made a fortune but no one knows exactly how.
During this discussion, Kristy notices there's a picture of a red cat on the mailbox and asks about it. Sgt. Johnson says there's a cat burglar in the area who's been robbing the homes of the very rich and then leaving a stenciled silhouette of a red cat behind.
Before leaving, Kristy also sees Cary Retlin lurking around nearby, and notices a weird tension between Sgt. Johnson and his partner, Officer Hopkins, and Sgt. Winters (who basically shows up on the scene and just takes over).
The next day, Kristy's called down to the police station for questioning. Sgt. Winters and Officer Hopkins meet her there, and ask a bunch of questions about Sgt. Johnson... that is, until he shows up. Kristy goes over what she saw that day with him again, which wasn't really much of anything. Cary Retlin is also there, being questioned.
Once they're both finished, Cary convinced Kristy, along with Claudia and Mary Anne, to go with him to look at the house again. They poke around looking for clues, and Kristy ends up finding a bullet casing. Mary Anne discovers a bullet hole on the porch door. There's also a discarded red marker, presumably from the mailbox cat drawing. While snooping, the kids run into Golem. He's oddly not at all angry to find them there. Instead he's friendly and chats with them, so they show him the clues they found. He's impressed, and so are Sgt. Winters and Hopkins when Golem calls them over to see. They then grill Kristy about Sgt. Johnson again, and Kristy tells them she remembers seeing him driving down the road towards the house before the alarm went off. Winters tells her not to discuss the case with Sgt. J anymore. By this point, Cary's in a big hurry to go, and once they do, he tells Kristy that the bullet casing came from the same kind of pistol the police use. Kristy starts to wonder if Sgt. J could be involved somehow.
Mallory does some research on the cat burglar, and learns that they've been operating on the East Coast for years now, usually pulling a huge heist, then lying low for a long time.
Golem calls the girls during a BSC meeting to ask for their help with his mystery, and to tell them Sgt. Johnson's fingerprints were on a red marker found on his property. This prompts the girls to get busy looking for clues again. One of the things they find out via some library research is that Sgt. J was involved with Golem before. He investigated him for smuggling, but the case never went anywhere.
Not long after, Kristy's questioned by Sgt. J again, and she notices he has a set of the same markers found at the scene, in every color but the red one. He also shows up at Claudia's to talk to the girls another time, and starts telling them how he hasn't done anything wrong. (More VERY inappropriate behavior! The adults in this book are all really creepily obsessed with the BSC.) He tells the girls that Winters and Hopkins are trying to frame him for the robbery. (I figured this from the start, but WTF is he doing driving to a teenage girl's house and then breaking down and telling them his problems??) In the midst of this, the chief of police shows up at Claudia's and arrests him.
After this disturbing turn of events, the BSC starts to wonder if Golem used them to gather "clues" against Sgt. J, and that was why he was so friendly. They decide it must be Winters who's trying to set him up, so Kristy, Mary Anne, Abby, and Cary head over to Golem's to tell him their theory. While there, Cary and Kristy notice a rare blue Tiffany lamp in his house... one that the cat burglar infamously stole from a prince. (Why didn't the police catch this when they were there initially?!) Kristy makes an excuse so they can make a quick getaway, but Golem realizes that they've figured everything out and pushes a button that locks down the house, trapping them inside. The four kids fight back to attempt escape, but thankfully during the struggle the police show up. (The rest of the BSC had gone to Chez Maurice to look for Golem, and learned he ate there the day of the robbery, when he was supposedly in France.)
Golem is promptly arrested, and Sgt. Johnson's name is cleared. Golem was indeed the cat burglar all along, and he was trying to frame Sgt. J as revenge for the time he investigated him. He planted the clues for the BSC to find, then used them to set up their own friend.
From all this, the BSC (finally!!) realizes how dangerous all of this was, and they decide this will be their last mystery.
Side plot: Charlotte's obsessed with Harriet the Spy and now wants to be a spy herself.
Timeline:
It's still summer, likely late August.
Misc. thoughts:
*This book has the worst side plot of all time! This whole Harriet the Spy thing is so overused... making it a different character does not make it something new. Mallory used to do this all the time, and a few other kids have since.
*The Mancusis have a new parrot, Annabelle.
*Mary Anne's handling the mystery notebook in here, but usually Mal does it. I'm not sure if it's an error or not though?
*Golem's interest in the BSC was so creepy in here! I know he was just using them, theoretically, but he even tried to take Kristy and Mary Anne out to a fancy dinner at one point. Wtf?
*Cary's dad used to be a cop, and is now a locksmith.
*Kristy is questioned by the police countless times in here, and she never has a parent present, despite her being only 13... I'm not even sure if they know about it.
*Claudia hides her candy when Janine comes into her room, but it's been established in multiple books that Janine knows about her junk food. In an early book, she had some of her own stashed away too.
*Sgt. Johnson's behavior towards the BSC is so creepy and out of line in here that even Kristy says he's scaring them with how he's acting when he shows up at Claudia's. I wish we got to see Mrs. Kishi give him a piece of her mind...
*If anyone's interested, his full name is James Johnson.
*Apparently Cary Retlin likes bird watching? Or at least he claims to, but you can never be sure with him.
*At least the BSC members learn that they aren't real detectives and don't actually know what they're doing from this ordeal. It's about time! As silly as this book was, I like that their snooping and playing detective finally came back to haunt them, in the form of someone using it against them. They learn a lesson and decide to stop solving mysteries, a win-win, and a fitting end to the mystery series.
*Ghostwritten by Ellen Miles.
Books mentioned:
*Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh (for the millionth time...)
My rating:
2 stars. I can't believe they made 36 of these.
Now it's just a straight shot to the end, 122-131... I expected to be excited to be this close, and back to just reading the regular series without countless interruptions, but I'm kind of sad!
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