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I love a good crime story. Don’t you? If I can’t find a good rom-com on television, I’ll search for Dateline, CSI or SVU. Putting all the pieces together to figure out how the crime really went down is so intriguing to me. Any time we go searching for a new series to watch, we always seem to pick something of the crime solving sort.

Smith Publishing sent me Elaine Loeser’s, “The Case of the Pinched Stradivarius – The Adventures of Miles and Fargo: Turtle Detectives,” for review recently and the story line goes perfectly with my bent toward the crime solving genre! 

“The Case of the Pinched Stradivarius” follows the detective work of two turtles, Miles and Fargo. From their perch near a window in a high rise apartment building, they are eye witness to a thief taking a Stradivarius from a child prodigy violinist.

If you don’t know know what a Stradivarius is, like I didn’t until I did a little snooping around, a Stradivarius is a violin, or other stringed instrument, built in the 17th or 18th century by members of the Stradivari family. Only about 650 true Stradivarius instruments are still in existence today.

Back to the story…

The turtles, who obviously aren’t able to leave their tank, impart their crime solving intelligence to two family dogs, Bogie and Bandit, who reside in the apartment with them. At first, they aren’t sure the dogs can hear them, but strangely enough, the dogs and turtles are able to communicate with each other. Miles and Fargo are able to give the dogs a description of the suspect and a location where they think the stolen Stradivarius may be stashed.

While out on a walk, Bogie sniffs out the closet where the Stradivarius has been hidden. After a little commotion between mom, the doorman (our thief), hotel management and the police, the Stradivarius is discovered inside a closet used to corral umbrellas outside of the hotel entrance. After the thief is arrested, Bogie and Bandit are hailed as heroes! Little does mom, or the other characters know, but Miles and Fargo are the real detectives and heroes of this story. Their bird’s eye view allowed them to gather all the evidence needed to find the real Stradivarius thief.

“The Case of the Pinched Stradivarius” is a fun read! It creates an opportunity for children to see real problem solving take place, mixed with a good bit of humor. The book is written completely in an all-dialogue format, where the readers see the conversations that go on between the characters. This style allows readers to easily identify who is saying what throughout the course of the book’s events. The hardback book is very sturdy, with good thick pages that will endure quite a few turns of the page!

Elaine Loeser, the author, has a lifetime love for crime stories. She’s spent her career working for the Securities and Exchange commission, working specifically on financial crimes. She was a writer on the hit television crime series, Law & Order, and taught television writing at the University of Michigan. The characters in this book were based on her pets; two turtles, Miles and Fargo; two dogs, Bandit and Bogie.

I enjoyed reading “The Case of the Pinched Stradivarius” very much! I know my kids will enjoy this one as well.

To purchase your own copy of “The Case of the Pinched Stradivarius,” follow this link to Amazon!