Judy Bolton #37 The Search for the Glowing Hand

In Judy Bolton #37, The Search for the Glowing Hand, Judy finds a frightened boy hiding in her house.  The boy is scared because he has been blamed for setting off a fire alarm, which resulted in firefighters being led away from the actual fire.  The boys swears that he is innocent.

Meanwhile, a group known as the Wasps is infiltrating the local schools, getting the students to protest against outsiders living near them.  In particular, the Wasps are against anyone who is not Christian or Caucasian.  Judy searches for the people who are in charge of the group.

On pages 11 and 12, Judy and Horace discuss how Peter became an FBI agent.

"And business school was just something to finish fast so I could work for Peter, and then he joined the FBI—"

"To please you, sis.  You know that was why he joined, don't you?  If you hadn't made such a fuss over Mr. Trent because he was a G-man, Peter might still have his little law office in Roulsville."

"I'd never seen an FBI agent before.  I guess I was a little childish about it," Judy admitted.  "I didn't mean to push Peter into a job that would take him away from me all the time."

This is the second time that Judy has expressed regret about Peter becoming an FBI agent.  I have to wonder whether Margaret Sutton regretted that decision.  I certainly do.  I wish Peter had remained in his law office with Judy helping him.

The previous book, The Pledge of the Twin Knights, mentions characters and scenes from the Oz books.  This book has a character named Oz and mentions the name Ozma.

The cover art was painted by Rudy Nappi.  This is the only Judy Bolton book done by Nappi.  It is believed that the cover art for The Search for the Glowing Hand was originally intended to be the cover of one of the revised text Nancy Drew books, possibly The Secret in the Old Attic.  The cover actually used on The Secret in the Old Attic is seen at the left.

The quality of the cover art for The Search for the Glowing Hand is not as good as Nappi's usual work.  I wonder if that is the reason the cover was not used on Nancy Drew and was then recycled for one of the other series.

The glowing hand was likely added to the cover painting later when it was used for this book instead.

A lot happens in this book.  I feel that the plot could easily have been enough for two books with perhaps the story continuing through both books.  One book could have featured the boy accused of the false alarm, and the other could have focused on the growing unrest in Farringdon.

This is a thoroughly engaging book.  It is excellent.