The James Budd Series by Dale Carlson

As I read the final Trixie Belden books, #35-39, I noticed advertisements for the James Budd series.  I was intrigued, especially because Dale Carlson also wrote the Jenny Dean series, which I enjoyed.  I purchased the four books.

The James Budd series consists of four books.

1.  The Mystery of the Madman at Cornwall Crag, 1984
2.  The Secret of Operation Brain, 1984
3.  The Mystery of the Lost Princess, 1984
4.  The Mystery of Galaxy Games, 1984

I find it interesting that Dale Carlson wrote a series for Grosset and Dunlap at about the same time that she wrote a series for Golden Press.  It's rather uncommon for an author to have series published almost simultaneously by rival publishing companies.

James Budd is like a teen version of James Bond.  His girlfriend is Honey Mack.  James and Honey are described as the perfect couple, perfectly matched to each other.  Both of them have spectacular fighting abilities.

I'm not going to do proper reviews of the four books, but I do want to mention the plot of the third book, which is particularly absurd.  In The Mystery of the Lost Princess, Sam Star, who is James' guardian, is in Europe looking for the lost princess of Mornia.  Meanwhile, Sasha is a girl who goes to school with James and Honey.  While in gym class, Honey notices that Sasha is being abused.  She has scars on her back from beatings.

James and Honey decide that they must get Sasha away from her aunt.  James comes up with an insane scheme to have Sasha pretend to be the lost princess of Mornia.  This means that he is even planning to fool Sam Star.  James and Honey look up facts about Mornia in books and have Sasha memorize them.

The scheme is so very wrong, and as soon as James decides to do it, I just knew that Sasha was probably going to turn out to be the real lost princess of Mornia.

I mostly read all four books.  They are not very interesting to me.  I have never liked spy thrillers, so I'm not surprised that I found them boring.  The books could appeal to those who do like spy thrillers.  If you are one of those people, then consider trying these books.

The final Trixie Belden books, which were published at the same time as these books, are not as good as the earlier Trixie Belden books.  Let's just say that I like the final Trixie Belden books much better than the James Budd books.  In my opinion, the James Budd books are bland and uninteresting.