To Catch a Thief
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
“To Catch a Thief is a page-turner of a mystery with a great big heart, and Amelia MacGuffin is the smart, funny kid sleuth we’ve all been waiting for. Readers will laugh and fall in love with the MacGuffin family as they follow the clues to crack this absolutely delightful case.” --Kate Messner, New York Times bestselling author of Blackout
Urchin Beach isn’t the sort of place where bad things happen. The little seaside town is too lucky for that. But then one day, a thief steals something precious—the town’s dragonfly staff, which is the source of all its good fortune and the most important part of the upcoming Dragonfly Day Festival.
Amelia MacGuffin is no detective. She’s eleven, quiet, and unlike her four younger siblings, she has no special talents. But Amelia loves her town. Her family has lived there forever. Her parents run the Pacific General Store, and she and her best friends, Birdie and Delphine, are about to start middle school. If Amelia doesn’t find the staff, the Dragonfly Day Festival will be canceled.
The town needs that tourist money to survive. Unless she cracks the case, Amelia’s family will lose everything--including the adorable stray dog they’ve fallen in love with. She only has seven days to solve Urchin Beach’s crime of the century. It’s not a lot of time, but Amelia has her list of suspects. It might be the new kids next door. Or the grumpy mystery writer who lives in the town’s creepiest mansion. Or perhaps even someone closer to home.
Amelia wants to save the town. She wants to save the dog. She wants both, so much.
But first, she has to catch a thief.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A rising sixth grader works to return a beloved object and stop a spate of bad luck in this quirkily plotted, Pacific Northwest–set whodunit from Brockenbrough (The Game of Love and Death). Every year, "charming but run-down" Urchin Beach takes in important funds by hosting a Dragonfly Day Festival, during which tourists can pay to replenish their own good fortune by twirling a special dragonfly-marked staff three times over their heads. But after a thief snatches the publicly displayed staff from the arms of a central Sasquatch statue, imperiling the annual source of income and seeding mistrust across the community, a deluge of ill-fated events besets the town. Amelia MacGuffin, who generally lacks "gumption even for the littlest things," investigates the incident, gathering up a library book on detecting, advice from neighbor Dr. Agatha (a writer of murder mysteries featuring "death by unusual methods"), and help from her family and community. Third-person prose alternates perspectives between the unknown thief and Amelia, detailing thoughtful Amelia's efforts alongside those of her more adventurous siblings, all of whom meanwhile fear losing a stray dog they've come to love. The myriad threads together create a cozy mystery aimed at the heart. Amelia and her family are white; secondary characters indicate racial diversity in the community. Ages 8–12.
