Dead Letter (Herculeah Jones Mystery) - Softcover

Byars, Betsy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142405647 ISBN 13: 9780142405642

Publisher: Puffin Books, 2006

Synopsis

When Herculeah discovers a mysterious letter inside the lining of a secondhand coat, she suspects it's a desperate cry for help. If so, what happened to the person who wrote it? Herculeah thinks she knows the answer. What she doesn't know is that someone is watching her-someone who will do anything to keep her quiet.

About this title

About the Author

Betsy Byars began her writing career rather late in life. "In all of my school years, . . . not one single teacher ever said to me, 'Perhaps you should consider becoming a writer,'" Byars recalls. "Anyway, I didn't want to be a writer. Writing seemed boring. You sat in a room all day by yourself and typed. If I was going to be a writer at all, I was going to be a foreign correspondent like Claudette Colbert in Arise My Love. I would wear smashing hats, wisecrack with the guys, and have a byline known round the world. My father wanted me to be a mathematician." So Byars set out to become mathematician, but when she couldn't grasp calculus in college, she turned to English. Even then, writing was not on her immediate horizon.

First, she married and started a family. The writing career didn't emerge until she was 28, a mother of two children, and living in a small place she called the barracks apartment, in Urbana, Illinois. She and her husband, Ed, had moved there in 1956 so he could attend graduate school at the University of Illinois. She was bored, had no friends, and so turned to writing to fill her time. Byars started writing articles for The Saturday Evening Post, Look,and other magazines. As her family grew and her children started to read, she began to write books for young people and, fortunately for her readers, discovered that there was more to being a writer than sitting in front of a typewriter.

"Making up stories and characters is so interesting that I'm never bored. Each book has been a different writing experience. It takes me about a year to write a book, but I spend another year thinking about it, polishing it, and making improvements. I always put something of myself intomy books -- something that happened to me. Once a wanderer came by my house and showed me how to brush my teeth with a cherry twig; that went in The House of Wingscopyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-7?The mighty Herculeah Jones is back with her able accomplice Meat in their third mystery. This time, Herculeah finds a note in the lining of an electric blue coat that she bought at a second-hand store. The missive is from someone who is being held prisoner and is terrified of being murdered. Through careful detective work and a bit of luck, the girl learns the identity of the woman and that she has indeed died, and is determined to find her killer. In the process, Herculeah very nearly becomes the next victim. Like strong detectives in adult mysteries, Herculeah is feisty and foolhardy. She is also frightened when she is held captive and guarded by a killer Doberman, and humbled by her experiences. Meat, far more timid, struggles to keep up, rarely realizing how helpful he really is. Byars is in top form, providing cliffhanger after cliffhanger, laughter and chills, in this well-crafted thriller fraught with danger and true villains.?Ann Cook, Winter Park Public Library, FL
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Puffin Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0142405647
• ISBN 13: 9780142405642
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 147