Kipton and the Riddle of Sandstone (Kipton Chronicles #18)

Kipton has gone to University, where she finds adults are as prone to mischief and mayhem as everywhere else she has been. At the end of the volume, Kipton gives Gruff to Kellianne, and hands over her unofficial position of girl detective on Mars to Kellianne.

Gr 6-9-Two science-fiction mysteries featuring Kipton, a Martian teenager who seems to be at least minoring in murder investigation. In Tante Else, a college professor is shot at a family party. In Sandstone, a professor drinks cyanide-laced champagne at a faculty dinner. In each case, Kipton and her friends have virtually unlimited access to confidential law-enforcement files and tacit permission to conduct searches and interrogations. The writing style is awkward with long passages of expository dialogue and an abundance of untranslated foreign phrases. "Created" slang expressions are repeated ad nauseam. Kipton or one of her cohorts uses "Cubaceous!" several times per chapter with "Tertium cubed!" a close second. Beyond these expressions and occasional references to "marsramblers," there is little to indicate the futuristic setting, and anachronisms abound. A post-millennial school shows a recruiting film-on a portable movie screen-and blows a fuse in the process. Tante Else, a longtime Mars resident, is pictured in a Victorian dress with high ruffled collar. Plot logic is tenuous at best. Story elements are introduced, partially developed, and then discarded without a trace. In Sandstone, a legendary boulder on campus is a central focus of the plot and is expected to figure strongly in the solution to the murder. The final resolution, however, has nothing to do with the stone or its mysterious powers. Readers deserve better than this formulaic approach to the genre.-Elaine E. Knight, Lincoln Elementary Schools, IL

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