A few good mysteries but too much filler
Mini-mysteries usually give the reader a brief story in which there are buried clues. If they are ferreted out, the mystery is solved and the crimebuster has succeeded.

Some of these mysteries had reasonable answers, but other solutions were marginal at best. (If an outside computer was able to contact one owned by a company, an employee must have provided the code, since hackers apparently don't exist.) More annoying was the use of filler--lots of pictures that don't help solve the crime and may confuse it. (That computer story has a pictured electromagnetic (?)card, but its distincti ve design isn't a clue. Another one depicts three villagers, two of whom appear to have dwarfism. We're to decide whether they are truth-tellers or liars, so does the genetic condition provide a clue? Nope.)

That last story brings up the most annoying kind of filler. Mystery generally implies a crime; crimebusting implies solving a crime. As the book continued, more and more stories had neither. Instead there were the tired old stories about villages of truth-tellers and liars, getting animals across a waterway safely, "logic problems" ("The heaviest baby was born two days later than the Shirley baby, etc. ....Match the names, birthdates and weights.) These are a different type of puzzle, and the last type must be a shock to children and adults who haven't tried them before and don't know how to use a diagram for help to a novice. I suspect that the author was up against a deadline and inserted whatever he could to stretch the length. If you want assorted puzzles and lots of pictures, this is fair. If you want mini-mysteries and crimebusting, try the book by Hy Conrad, Crime Files titles by Jeremy Brown, and the braingle.com section on mysteries.

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