Connie Blair's Colorful Clues Part I

I recently revisited the Connie Blair books. In the past, I recall people stating that the first book, The Clue in Blue, is slow-paced. It does start out slowly, a little slower than I would prefer. The first two chapters read more like the usual young adult fare—probably because the author was Betty Cavanna. During the third chapter, Connie gets knocked out, so the action begins.

In the Connie Blair series, Connie is knocked unconscious many times. If someone were knocked out this many times in real life, they would have to end up with brain damage. Some of Connie's concussions are quite bad, particularly the one in The Gray Menace in which the assailant drew blood.

Cavanna was an expert at imagery. From The Puzzle in Purple, page 83:

Somehow, though it was a lovely and dramatic thing the sight of the ill-fated cape made her shudder. She had a feeling that in using it to drape the skeleton someone had tossed a pebble into a dark pool. In ever-widening ripples the water it had disturbed might eventually reach some dim and frightening shore.

I noticed a mistake in The Secret of Black Cat Gulch. Connie and Georgia stay at the Casa Bonito. Casa is Spanish for house, and it is a feminine word. The name of the inn should be Casa Bonita.

People love it when something exciting happens, like a bad car wreck, or even a car wreck that is not bad, and cars slow down so that the drivers can gawk. I remember having to slow down to a crawl one time on the interstate highway because of a pickup stopped at the side of the road with a refrigerator standing behind it. Wow, how exciting, a refrigerator. I was disgusted because I wanted to get home. From pages 158-159 in The Peril in Pink, a similar and hilarious scene occurs:

.....the chase was not over. What was their next move to be?

The decision, as it happened, was taken out of her hands. Before the driver of Paradise had even shifted gears there was a great shout from behind them and the passengers all turned to discover that Comet had burst into flames.

To Connie and Mike it came as an almost inevitable climax to their wild ride over the mountains. Overheated, pushed beyond endurance, steam had been hissing from the radiator for miles. But the uproar the fire was bound to create, in an island where any kind of excitement is welcomed, was something they couldn't foretell.

This was as good as Carnival!

This was fun!

There was no question of proceeding and abandoning the afflicted bus. Such a spectacular performance deserved a cheering squad. As the factory doors were braced open and a bucket brigade began to form, the workers scrambled down from Paradise in a joyous throng. The driver pulled on his brakes, turned off the ignition, and hurried along with them, leaving his vehicle blocking all traffic on the narrow road.