Ted Wilford #3 Star Reporter and #5 Empty House

In Ted Wilford #3, The Star Reporter Mystery, Ronald Wilford searches for Barry Knight, a newspaper reporter.  Barry has earned quite a few enemies in his career, and Ron suspects that one of those people might have acted against Barry.

Ted does not appear in this book until page 71.  This story is primarily Ron's mystery.

On page 128, Ron explains, "His crime wasn't what we would call a major one, and anyway our society has made enough progress so that we don't hold a son responsible for what his father may have done."  This idealistic thinking sounds wonderful, but in my experience, far too many people even today hold all relatives accountable for another relative's actions.  I know this from personal experience.  It's sad, but true. 

I like that in these stories that once the main characters figure something out, the reader gets to know.  In some series books, the main character figures something out but acts mysterious, not telling anyone else, including the reader. 

What's nice about independent series is that they don't follow the predictable pattern of the typical series formula.  You wouldn't have an entire Dana Girls book told from the perspective of Lettie Briggs.  I must say though that the idea of entering Lettie's warped mind would be interesting.

Like the other Ted Wilford books, the plot moves slowly but is interesting.

In Ted Wilford #5, The Empty House Mystery, a man advertises in the Town Crier for a lost notebook that has a zipper with a lock on it.  The notebook is turned in, and Ted decides to deliver it to the man's address.  The trouble is that the house is empty.  The phone rings, and the man tells Ted to leave the notebook.  Later, Ted realizes that he was tricked, but even more puzzling, the house has no phone service.  How did the phone ring?

I laughed every time the boys insist that telephones must have wires.  From page 141:

"Who's there to answer?  There's nobody home.  Well, what do you make of it?  Another telephone, and no wires."

"What's the matter, you old-fashioned or something?  You think telephones need wires?"

If the boys only knew...

This is an excellent book.  There's something about an empty house, especially when a telephone rings with no telephone service.  Spooky!