REVIEW: The Mysterious Code (Trixie Belden)

The Mysterious Code (Trixie Belden)
Kathryn Kenny

Trixie Belden and her friends have a club, The Bob Whites of the Glen. They fixed up a clubhouse and work on projects to help their community, Sleepyside, NY. Imagine their surprise when the high school principal tells them that the school board is considering disbanding all clubs. The board thinks that the clubs don't serve a  purpose and form cliques, leaving some kids out. The Bob Whites quickly come up with a project they all believe in so that they can prove their club is productive. The teens are going to hold an antique show and sale to benefit UNICEF. While gathering items for the show at Honey Wheeler's home, Trixie finds a magazine with he key to a secret code inside. The code leads the group to a cool discovery! Unfortunately, publicity for the antique show leads local thieves to the antiques. There is a break in at a local home and at the clubhouse. The teen sleuths are back on the case to discover the identity of the thieves before they ruin the fundraiser.

The Mysterious Code is the 7th book in the Trixie Belden series. The first six books were written by Julie Campbell. Books 7 - 39 were written by various authors using the pen name Kathryn Kenny. Plot wise The Mysterious Code is one of the weaker books in the series. It's still an enjoyable read, but not as well-written as the others. The code portion of the plot is clever, but plays only a small part in the story. There is a bit of character development, but not much really happens in this book. All in all, another enjoyable visit to Sleepyside, but there are much better books in the series.

The Trixie Belden series was my favorite series when I was in middle school. I preferred Trixie over Nancy Drew. I had the whole set with the 80's paperback covers. I babysat my bratty nephew to earn money to buy the paperbacks at Waldenbook s. :) The brat is now 37 years old. ha ha  I still love Trixie but read them with an adult perspective now. Still enjoyable! But I cringe every time the kids decide to chase criminals and thieves themselves rather than calling the police, or when they hide events or evidence from their parents.

Great series! I am enjoying re-reading the books even though I have an adult perspective now. The books are a bit dated (just like Nancy Drew), but fun, quick reads. I like reading a Trixie book in-between thriller or suspense novels to clear my mind a bit. There is no cursing, nothing graphic.....just teens solving simple mysteries while going horseback riding, etc in the woods around their homes. Nice relaxing reading. :)

 The last Trixie Belden book came out in the late 80's, and some of the books can be hard to find. I'm reading scanned ebooks on openlibrary.org. Most of the series is available on that site. Openlibrary is a free site that offers scanned ebooks of many books for checkout, just like a library. It's all legal and does not violate copyright laws.