Francie's brother Theo has secrets-secrets Francie thinks she wants to know. But what if one of those secrets is that Theo is a murderer? To avoid considering that possibility, Francie plunges into her senior year at a small-town high school near Enchantment Lake in northern Minnesota. It's a radical change from her private school in New York, but she hopes to keep an eye on her great aunts and maybe finally learn more about the mother she never knew. A small silver box seems to hold the answers, and she is determined to get her hands on it.
But when her long-lost brother turns up, so does a dead body, and once again Francie is drawn into a mystery. A long list of suspects, with Theo at the top, keeps her head spinning. When Francie herself becomes a suspect she starts to feel like she is walking on thin ice, but it isn't until she is literally walking on thin ice that the pieces start to come together-and by then it may be too late.
In her previous adventure Enchantment Lake, Francie was thrown into northern Minnesota lake living: fishing, berry picking, lost kayaks and scary boat rides, poisoned hotdishes, exploding bulldozers, a forest fire . . . and murder. But if she thinks things have settled down, she's in for a surprise. A new school with new friends (and a few enemies), a lead role in a play, an encounter with a giant muskie, archaeological twists, secret tunnels, thin ice, and a strangely sticky murder are all coming her way in The Clue in the Trees.
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A metallic crash jarred Francine out of slumber. 1, SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT
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(@UMinnPress, 19 September 2017, 200 pages, ebook, copy from the publisher and voluntarily reviewed)
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I really enjoyed Francie's first adventure, Enchantment Lake and was looking forward to finding out what she gets up to next. This picks up a few months after the first book with Francine struggling to get just a regular kid at a new school. This is harder than it should be as everyone knows about her adventures in the first book and either flock around her in admiration or avoid her because they think she's a weirdo. When a murder occurs she's told by the new Sheriff not to investigate it which of course makes her determined to get to the bottom of what's happening especially when she starts to suspect her brother of being involved in something bad. This is a fun, entertaining read. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
