Please find my review at http://www.myshelf.com/reviews.htm ( )

While accompanying her mother on a business trip to Scotland, fourteen-year-old Kari and her best friend Lucas attempt to solve a kidnapping mystery.

My students who say they love reading a mystery will love this book. Kari and her best friend Lucas are off on the adventure of a lifetime to Edinburgh, Scotland. Kari’s mother has the pleasure of interviewing the child piano prodigy Seneca Crane, for the magazine she works for. Kari and Lucas had gone to see Seneca when she play with the Minnesota Orchestra. They learn several things about Seneca. First her parents are domineering, second she is very lonely, and third, she can seem to fit their friendship into her very busy schedule. They become very good friends. When Seneca is suddenly kidnapped, Kari and Lucas start looking at the clues in hopes of rescuing their new friends. This was a first read of this author for me. I will definitely look into her other works. ( )

While accompanying her mother on a business trip to Scotland, fourteen-year-old Kari and her best friend Lucas attempt to solve the kidnapping mystery of a 15-year-old piano prodigy. ( )

Rescuing Seneca Crane is the second book in the Kari & Lucas mystery series. I adored The Mystery of the Third Lucretia, the first book in the series, and I devoured this one during the read-a-thon. The story picks up only a few months after the first novel ends. It's late summer, and the girls are off to Edinburgh, Scotland with Kari's mom, who is interviewing teenage piano prodigy Seneca Crane for a magazine piece. Kari and Lucas befriend Seneca, who has accomplished a lot professionally, but has had little room for a normal, teenage social life. As the title indicates (it's literal, not figurative), Seneca is soon kidnapped, and Kari and Lucas find themselves in the middle of another caper in a foreign country.

Once again, Susan Runholt does a tremendous job of describing locations. Edinburgh and the other towns of Scotland are like characters in this novel. The misunderstanding of the Scottish accent provided several laugh out loud moments for me. I loved this book as an adult reader, which is not always true of children's books. (A side note about grade level: the characters are teenagers, and teens would certainly enjoy it, but I think it's also appropriate for upper elementary readers.) Runholt also deftly educates the readers while entertaining them. I learned a lot about classical music, Scotland and history along the way, but I was mostly aware of the adventure I was on and wondering how Kari and Lucas would solve the mystery and rescue Seneca Crane.

If you haven't read The Mystery of the Third Lucretia, please read it first. This book is just as good, but you'll love it more if you already know Kari and Lucas. I personally enjoyed Lucretia a little bit more because I enjoy art more than classical music, and I've been to most of the places Kari and Lucas visited in Lucretia. I haven't been to Scotland yet, but with Runholt's descriptions I could certainly picture myself there, and I do now want to visit Scotland even more desperately. ( )