School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-Sammy Keyes, that savvy seventh-grade sleuth, is back in another whodunit adventure. It may be Christmas, but that doesn't mean everybody in Santa Martina plans to be nice. The minute Sammy gets roped into working on the Canine Calendar float in the holiday parade, trouble erupts. The famous calendar cover dog, Marique, is dognapped, and the animal's owner holds the amateur detective responsible for finding her pet before the $50,000 ransom comes due. However, the teen can't find the creature or many clues. The only thing that turns up is a young elflike girl named Elyssa, who has big problems of her own. Possible suspects and evil motivations abound as the story moves into overdrive. Sammy carefully closes in on the dognappers while at the same time strengthening her newly formed friendships with Elyssa and her grandmother's cranky neighbor. It's not often that 13-year-olds hang around with younger children or visit with senior citizens, and Van Draanen handles the relationships with style and sensitivity. A refreshing, well-rounded character in every sense of the word, Sammy is great fun to spend time with, and her newest adventure is a roller-coaster ride full of twists aplenty.-Linda Bindner, formerly at Athens Clarke County Library, GA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

ALA Booklist (Wed Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 1999)

Readers of Van Draanen's previous books know that 13-year-old Samantha Keyes is good but not a goody-goody. She has a lot more personality than most junior detectives in novels for this age group, and her varied adventures are usually more complicated and less predictable. That's certainly true in this story, which is set during the Christmas season. Rich Mrs. Landvogt's dog has been kidnapped, little Elyssa Keltner keeps running away from home, Gram's unpleasant neighbor has disappeared, and Sam's obnoxious classmate is up to her old tricks. Of course, Sammy make sense of it all, learning a thing or two about forgiveness in the bargain--which she applies when her estranged mother comes home for the holidays. There's a bit too much going on, and it may take children unfamiliar with the series a few pages to get up to speed with the characters. But Van Draanen manages to pull things together in an entertaining way, at the same time delivering some nicely drawn secondary characters and a fitting theme that is seasonal but not intrusive. (Reviewed September 1, 1999)

Horn Book (Sat Apr 01 00:00:00 CST 2000)

When a Pomeranian is dognapped, its nasty socialite owner coerces thirteen-year-old Sammy into searching for the valuable pooch. A learning-to-deal-with-death subplot finds the spunky sleuth befriending a young girl whose father has recently died, while another subplot has Sammy getting revenge on her archrival. Though generally breezy and upbeat, the mystery is less engaging than Sammy's earlier exploits.