The Red Herring Mystery

As an artist, my eyes are trained to observe the minutest detail, enabling me to spot the most obscure clues. Can you do the same? By looking carefully at the notes and pictures in my casebook, can you find all the clues and deduce how the crime has been committed? The reader, as assistant detective, must gather clues from the text and illustrations to help solve a mystery involving a stately home full of possible suspects and a disappearing fish-shaped ruby.

A 'whodunnit' for children of all ages, complete with stately home, zany suspects and one Agnes Crusty!

It was only a matter of time, before the master puzzler turned to the Whodunnit genre (complete with a stately home full of zany suspects, including one Agnes Crusty). Adshead fans, adults as well as legions of children, will be glad they waited. But we're giving nothing away.

A 2022 MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD Nominee In this Avery Ayers Antique Mystery series debut, perfect for fans of Ellery Adams and Jane K. Cleland, an antiques appraiser hunts a missing gem while probing her parents' deaths. After her parents' deaths, Avery Ayers takes over the family business, Antiquities & Artifacts Appraised, from the home office in Lilac Grove and a branch in Manhattan. Now living back at home with her younger sister Tilly and their newly moved-in, eccentric Aunt Midge and her Afghan hound, Avery's life is filled with jewels, tapestries, paintings, and rare finds. But their world is rocked when Avery learns that the theft of a priceless ruby may be connected to her parents' demise. The trouble starts when the Museum of Antiquities hires Avery to appraise a rare, resplendent ruby. It bears a striking similarity to a solitary stone in the museum's prized Xiang Dynasty bejeweled dragon medallion exhibit, which has long been missing one of its ruby eyes. Now, Avery and her colleagues--ostentatious Sir Robert Lane and fatherly Micah Abbott--suspect they may have the missing gem. But facets of the case remain cloudy. Security guard Art Smith is always underfoot but is not what he appears. Another body turns up connected to the appraisal. And Avery receives mysterious notes that begin to put her life in danger. Avery enlists possible ally Art's help in cutting the list of suspects who might have polished off her parents and swiped the jewel. Was it art collector Oliver Renell? Curator Nate Brennan? Acquisitions Liaison Francesca Giolitti? Actor Tyler Chadwick? Was the crime impersonal or perpetrated by someone all too close to Avery? If she can't find the culprit, lovely Lilac Grove may be the setting for Avery's own death.

Red Herring Mysteries develops a child's inferential and deductive thinking skills for more effective reading, listening, and logical thinking. The activities also encourage creative brainstorming and flexible thinking. Given a seemingly contradictory statement, children must practice good thinking strategies and formulate astute "yes/no" questions to help them discover the solution to each mystery. Resolutions are often funny, adding appeal to the activities. Teaching Support Includes tips, suggestions, answers, a sample questioning session, and graphic organizer sheets to keep track of deductions.

THE STORY: Three love stories, a murder mystery, and a nuclear espionage plot converge in this noir comedy about marriage and other explosive devices. It's 1952: America's on the verge of the H-bomb, Dwight Eisenhower's on the campaign trail

Freelance writer Alex Vlodnachek hasn’t had a vacation in ages. So when her sister invites her—and pup Lucy—for a girls’ get-away to Miami, it’s too tempting to resist. Big sister Annie wants Alex to savor a little fun in the sun at her South Beach condo. Redhead Alex just wants to escape complications at home, enjoy a little R&R and find an industrial-sized bottle of sunscreen. But trouble is hot on her heels—along with a few stray friends and relatives. On the eve of the condo association's hotly contested election, everything in the luxury high-rise is going haywire. But board president and social butterfly Leslie McQueen seems curiously absent amidst the chaos. Along with a good chunk of the association's cash. When several of Annie’s friends are left holding the bag, Alex jumps in to help—and discovers the tony condo tower offers no shortage of shady characters, murder, and mayhem. But when her brother, Nick, arrives—with their irrepressible grandmother, Baba, and Alex’s pal Trip, in tow—is the gang riding to the rescue? Or plunging Alex into more hot water? Praise for SEEING RED “Crazy surprises, fun characters, and a feisty heroine to save the day. Everything I love in a cozy.” —Lynn Cahoon, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author “Witty dialogue with laugh-out-loud moments, well-drawn characters and multiple mysteries weave their way through this satisfying story.” —Shelf Awareness

Don't let the gruesome murders of a man and a woman in the basement of a former government building just off Capitol Hill in Washington, DC lull you into thinking this is just another mystery novel. It will take careful reading of this compelling and different kind of novel tounderstand the O. Henry-type ending. Page after page, and chapter after chapter, will bring together a series of intrigues. For example, the heads of the Italian mafia and the Russian mafiya work out a historic cooperative scheme to assassinate a high U.S. government official. This is to take place in late October 2007 during the 100th anniversary of Union Station on Capitol Hill, and the 78th anniversary of the 1929 Stock Market crash. (These two events truly are historically correct.) Once youdiscover that asecret Middle East terrorist organization is involved, the two events will make sense, because thatorganizationhas learned of the mafia and mafiya alliance's plan and will take advantage of them to execute its own event that will make a mockery of Capitol Hill's security procedures. The organization uses a small bank in a Caribbean nation to lauder the money needed to carry out its mission. The organization calls its effort OPERATION RED HERRING. The term stems from animal rights activists in England whoconfusehunt dogs bydragging bags of that dead fish across the trail so the fox is not killed. To the organization, the term means deception. A curmudgeon private detective and his Capitol Police niece not only solve the two murders, but they help unravel the Union Station plot. The murders take place in what used to be, for the novel's purpose, the former Government Printing Office. The GPO now houses an innovative semi-government agency, but few of the current and former occupants know the existence of a underground tunnel between the building and Union Station. (It actually exists.) The assassination attempt will make use of that tunnel to avoid discovery. Many clues are scattered throughout the novel. You may have to reread sections of the novel to discover them. Even the murder weapons are unusual. And, at least one character will turn out to be someonewho really is not what you think.