Book Title:  Into the Dark (An Echo Falls Mystery - www.echofallsmysteries.com)
Author: Peter Abrahams
Publishing Company: HarperTrophyCanada
Year:  2008
# of Pages: 300
ISBN-13:  978-1-55468-069-6   

Reviewed By:  Deborah Ground Buckner (Kansas City Correspondent - USA)

Into the Dark is the third installment in Peter Abrahams' Echo Falls Mystery series (Down the Rabbit Hole and Behind the Curtain).  Thirteen-year-old Ingrid Levin-Hill is one of the finest young detectives in literature.  Perhaps that is because she frequently turns to the master, Sherlock Holmes, for advice, reading and rereading the A. Conan Doyle stories to find advice to apply to the situations she faces.

What makes Ingrid so refreshing is that she does not live and breathe solving mysteries.  As this book opens, she is busy playing Gretel in a community theater production of Hansel and Gretel.  She loves her dog, gets irritated with her older brother, goes snowshoeing with her possibly-more-than-friend Joey, and happens to find a dead body that quickly implicates her eccentric grandfather in a murder case. 

While her parents hire an attorney to represent "Grampy," Ingrid begins piecing the clues together as well working to identify the real perpetrator, a task made more complicated by her grandfather's reluctance to share information.  Using her powers of observation and deduction, Ingrid not only solves the case, but also uncovers some additional secrets her grandfather has been keeping. 

Ingrid is a crime-solving detective who remains very much a normal young girl, pursuing a well-rounded life and staying close to her family.  That isn't easy in this book, where the major plot is complicated by the revelation that Ingrid's father has been having an affair.  There are some real, dark issues young Ingrid has to face.

Today's sophisticated young adult readers can handle the material, but Abrahams' complete development of character and willingness to force them into difficult situations makes this an entertaining read for adults as well.  For those of us who passed many a childhood summer reading the exploits of teen detectives, Into the Dark brings a bit of nostalgia.  It's like reading Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden again, but for grown-ups.

Peter Abrahams (www.peterabrahams.com) received an Edgar Award nomination and won the Agatha Award for Down the Rabbit Hole.