Trixie Belden and the Gatehouse Mystery

by Julie Campbell

Hardcover, 1951

Status

Available

Series

Trixie Belden mysteries (03)

Genres

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Wisc: Whitman, 1951 (1951), Edition: 1St Edition, Hardcover

Description

Juvenile Fiction. Juvenile Literature. Mystery. When Trixie and Honey explore an abandoned gatehouse, they discover more than dust and spiderwebs. Stuck in the dirt floor is a huge diamond! Could a ring of jewel thieves be hiding out in Sleepyside?

User reviews

LibraryThing member AprilBrown

A childhood favorite re-visited.

Is the story as good as I remember? – Yes

What ages would I recommend it too? – Ten and up.

Length? – Most of a day’s read.

Characters? – Memorable, several characters.

Setting? – Real world, pre - computer pre - air conditioning, pre - cell phone.

Written

approximately? – 1951.

Does the story leave questions in the readers mind? – Ready to read more.

Any issues the author (or a more recent publisher) should cover? Yes. A slight mention of the time frame of the story - as the teens are given far more freedom to come and go as they please than would be safe today. Also, the absence of computers, cell phones, and air conditioning in homes, especially the mansion.

Short storyline: Trixie Belden, Honey, Jim, and her brothers work to catch the thieves who dropped a diamond in their future clubhouse. This one spends a lot of time focusing on thought processing, and less action.

Notes for the reader: A great mystery! No violence (only referred to from the past), no murder.

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LibraryThing member 6M2008

The gate house mystery is a real page turner and also very mysterious :)

LibraryThing member macjest

The last book in the introductory trilogy. We get to meet the Trixie's brothers who have come home from working at summer camp. This is also the book where the Bob-Whites of the Glen (the club all of them belong to) gets established.
How I wished that I could have belonged to their club. Five

teenagers who get along with each other and have adventures. How cool is that!

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LibraryThing member satyridae

This may be the first novel I've ever read that was constructed entirely (and I do mean entirely) out of slang and baby-talk. This is not a see-crud, I guess, to those of you who are fans of this series. I can already hear you saying, "Natch. And isn't it just yummy-yum-yum?"

To a certain degree, I

guess it is. There's a secret-club feel to this series, a belonging and an inclusion that I imagine would appeal greatly to odd little kids. The mystery wasn't very mysterious, but it was fun to meet the brothers of Trixie. And I admit to snorting with adolescent-style laughter every time the boys called the girls "Moll Dicks, Inc." because yes, I am twelve years old. The plotting is solid, if transparent. The characters are very likable, though I can't really tell the boys apart yet.

I don't like the illustrations, I think they make Trixie and Honey look eight years old.

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LibraryThing member bekkil1977

The girls go exploring a rundown old gatehouse on the Wheeler's property that they are planning on turning into a clubhouse for their new club, the Bob-Whites (lots of rundown buildings in this area of New York, for some reason). Trixie finds a diamond in the dirt floor and convinces Honey to let

her try to figure out how it got there. She's convinced she and Honey can track down the diamond thief better than the actual police could (I do love the sheer improbability of these books. I know it sounds like I'm making fun, but I truly do love them). Trixie is sure someone was hiding in the woods and overheard her and Honey's conversation. The next day, two men show up at Manor House looking for jobs: Nailor, a gardener, and Dick, a chauffeur. Both men are hired (the Wheelers apparently aren't big fans of background checks) and Dick is assigned a room over the garage with Regan (poor Regan) while Nailor sleeps in the house. Trixie is positive she heard someone trying to sneak into Honey's room that night when she sleeps over, and she's convinced it's Dick. He certainly does act suspiciously, and of course in the end Trixie was right. Dick is arrested and the girls get a nice fat reward for their part in helping to catch a notorious pickpocket, which they use to buy Miss Trask a horse.

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