A Terrible Time on the Nile Express: The Express Train to Trouble (A Miss Mallard Mystery) by Robert Quackenbush

At breakfast on the luxurious Nile Express, chaos broke out in the dining car.

The world-famous ducktective, Miss Mallard, could not believe her eyes.

Vinegar in Sir Reginald Baldpate's tea caused him to choke. A trick dribble glass spoiled Lady Teal's diamond-adorned frock, and a slap on the back sent Professor Bafflehead's spectacles flying, as the perennial prankster George Ruddy Duck made his way down the dining car aisle.

Not one to miss an opportunity, Miss Mallard quickly offered Sir Reginald a glass of water and took a seat at the table opposite him.

"I've been so anxious to talk to you. I saw you come aboard with your recent discovery, the Tut-n-Quacken mummy case.

All that gold!"

But not even the noted interrogator Miss Mallard could get any details out of Sir Reginald. His answer to all her questions was "Quite!" Then Miss Mallard asked him about the newspaper story that he had been injured in East Africa.

"What happened?" she asked.

Sir Reginald said, "Tigers chased me," and abruptly got up, leaving his cane behind.

Hmmm. Tigers? And when the annoying prankster George Ruddy Duck was discovered missing the next morning, Miss Mallard was called on to save the reputation of the posh Nile Express and find the missing, if not missed, prankster. Is George Ruddy Duck a dead duck? Has someone purloined the Tut-n-Quacken mummy case?

All the clues are there for the illustrious spinster sleuth, Miss Mallard and young detective readers to solve the case, in Robert Quackenbush's Express Train to Trouble: A Miss Mallard Mystery (QUIX) (Aladdin Books), in this clever take-off on Agatha Christie's classic Miss Marple mysteries, right down to the magnifying glass, flashlight, the versatile knitting needles, and, of course, chocolates, in her ever-present reticule in this beginning chapter book for primary readers who love sleuthing stories.

Miss Mallard seems to be perpetually pursued by problems on various conveyances for the enjoyment of young mystery fans in Quackenbush's other Miss Mallard mysteries, such as Cable Car to Catastrophe: A Miss Mallard Mystery (QUIX), Taxi to Intrigue: A Miss Mallard Mystery (QUIX) and Gondola to Danger: A Miss Mallard Mystery (QUIX), to name a few.

And for young fans of hard-boiled gumshoes, Robert Quackenbush is also the noted author of the Detective Mole series, a great launching pad to the middle reader's favorite, Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective.

Secrets of the Pyramids: The Last Pharoah by R. L. LeFevers

Mother stared at me for a long moment. "Your grandmother is right. You are a peculiar child."

Her words stung me to the quick. Peculiar? Peculiar!

All the joy and promise of this trip evaporated. One part of me longed to explain the true reasons I acted so peculiar, but I didn't think the true reasons would make her feel any better. In fact, she would most likely ship me off to a sanatorium if she knew that I spent most of my time removing black magic and ancient curses from rare and powerful artifacts in the Museum of Legends and Antiquities that my parents oversaw back in London. Or that I spent quite a lot of energy avoiding secret societies that would love to get their hands on those artifacts and use them for their own evil ends. No, Mother wouldn't consider those reasons any less peculiar.

No, mother doesn't know the half of it, and Theodosia Throckmorton, with the powerful Orb of Ra in her Victorian reticule and the Emerald Tablet concealed in her smuggled cat 's basket, is on a mission for the Keepers of the Secrets to return those magical objects to her Egyptian allies, webjedin. Undercover as a demure eleven-year-old, Theodosia knows she must return the sacred relics, long held in England, without letting them fall into the hands of the Serpents of Chaos, all the while keeping these midnight activities a secret from her mother, who has only grudgingly brought her along to Egypt to help discover the tomb of Thutmose III.

Theodosia has long sensed that she somehow has the power to sense the hekau, ancient magical powers and curses left behind by the gods of Egypt, and once in Cairo her senses are almost overwhelmed by the miasma of these forces all around her. Still, she find allies in the form of Major Grindle, a British officer who is also a clandestine Keeper of the Secrets, and Hadji, a donkey boy who himself seems to have an aura of power despite his rags and small size.

Despite her best efforts, however, Theodosia finds herself falling into the hands of the henchmen of Chaos, and then her mother and Hadji, whom the Keepers and the Serpents of Chaos believe is the last and future Pharoah of a liberated Egypt, are also kidnapped and held for an unthinkable ransom, a price which only Theodosia can pay.

R. L. LeFevers' Theodosia and the Last Pharaoh (The Theodosia Series) (Houghton Mifflin, 2011), the fourth book in the notable Theodosia Series, proves to be the most engrossing adventure yet. Set in a turn-of-the-century Egypt awash in its own anticolonialist chaos, this episode has plenty of atmosphere as Theodosia transcends the restraints upon young girls of the period in midnight missions among the pyramids to foil skullduggerous villains, including the ever-reincarnated villain Braggenschnott and his minions of doom, the secret society of Chaos, which seeks to turn the powers of ancient Egypt into their own evil ends. Theodosia understands that she has a role to play and bravely uses her own developing powers in an atmospheric adventure story which will keep readers riveted to the page.

Despite its place as fourth in the series, this novel easily stands alone. In the hands of master storyteller LeFevers, Theodosia matures, growing in the recognition of her own powers and in her growing understanding that she is indeed a Rekhet, a descendant of the magical seer priestesses of ancient Egypt and that her peculiarity is no quirk of nature, but a magical bequest descended to her through her little-known grandfather. And we sense that with her now-understood true nature, Theodosia will return to the eternal struggle between the powers of good and evil with renewed powers in the next volume.

Fans of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians and his Egypt-centered The Kane Chronicles will find Theodosia and the Last Pharaoh (The Theodosia Series) familiar fantasy adventure territory.