This is book 4 of the series. As such, it is now easier to have an overview of the Stanley books.

The Stanley kids have a tremendous amount of freedom, to roam and explore widely. David, the eldest is given a substantial amount of responsibility for his young siblings. Strangely, he seems overly lax in supervising when the parents are absent. He is too easily manipulated by Janie, which comes across as pretty implausible, especially when they propose outrageous schemes. Typical of children underestimating hazards, the kids never really tell their parents much of the connotations in their lives, situations that have the potential to be quite disastrous.

My biggest niggle is that David’s perception is the only view we are presented in all four of the Stanley books. While that’s the author’s choice, it might have enriched the stories if the other children’s perceptions had been presented as well. How Blair or Amanda would interpret events would have been interesting. As for Janie, I found her an unbelievable character. Her constant disingenuous behaviour was never checked and her bossy dominance over David wasn’t credible. In these situations, I wondered why Snyder painted such an ineffective father.

Despite these rather implausible scenarios, the story was engaging and developed the theme of a family living a rural life in apparently simpler times. As before, Blair is my favourite character and I liked how the author leaves his extrasensory perception undefined and unexplained. ( )

8 year old genius Janie Stanley fancies herself a detective. When dogs in town start turning up missing, and her new Vietnamese friends are blamed, Janie ropes David, Amanda, David's friend Pete and the twins into investigating. Despite the eventual dog-nappers being pretty easily telegraphed right from the beginning, it is still entertaining to read about the Stanley kids capers. I just realized that the three sequels to The Headless Cupid are not nearly as supernatural as it was, but even though that was my favorite thing about said novel, you don't really miss that element. I would really like to know more about Blair and how he just knows things (and, it seems silly for the other characters to still be dismissing his comments and premonitions even though he's proven right over and over). Unfortunately, this is the last Stanley family book. I suppose it's still possible for Snyder to write more; even though she's 85 years old, she's still writing excellent children's books. ( )