Diana Winthrop #5 Legacy of Lucian Van Zandt and #6 Threat of the Pirate Ship

In Diana Winthrop #5, The Legacy of Lucian Van Zandt, Megan has a splendid idea for Founder's Day at Van Zandt High School.  She wants Diana to research Lucian Van Zandt and the mystery of his heirs, then Leslie will write a play based on Lucian's life.

Diana and Leslie demur at first, but then they get into the spirit of the project.  Both girls will receive credit in their English course for their efforts. Meanwhile, protesters appear in front of the school.  Word has gotten out that the school might be sold, and the residents who live in the buildings owned by the school will lose their rent-controlled apartments.  The principal and the board of trustees have received threats.  Something sinister is afoot, and Diana's research becomes the key to solving the mystery.

On page 36, Diana snaps pictures of a live television broadcast to get pictures of the protesters.  It's amazing that Diana has time to get her camera passed to her and somehow manages to shoot the pictures before the story is over.

Nothing is mentioned about a VCR, which would have made the situation easier on Diana, because she could have snapped pictures later of the recording.  This is in 1984, and my family already had a VCR.  Perhaps they weren't yet common, but the Winthrop family is extremely wealthy.  They would have had a VCR, even if many people did not yet have them.

This is an excellent book and is my favorite title in the series.

In Diana Winthrop #6, The Threat of the Pirate Ship, Gran Culhaine is in Tampa, Florida, and has broken her leg.  Gran sends an urgent message to Diana, requesting her presence in Florida.  When Diana arrives, Gran can hardly speak, but she manages to convey that Diana must take possession of her belongings and inspect them. Gran also tells Diana that the accident occurred during the night at CHS, the company for which Gran is on the board of directors.  Even more important, somebody pushed Gran, causing the accident.  Diana also learns from others that someone is threatening the Gasparilla Day events. Diana shrewdly concludes that the threats and Gran's accident are connected.

This book has a few too many characters, but I was mostly able to keep them straight. Fortunately, they were not introduced all at once, which helped.

This is a very good book.

Overall the Diana Winthrop series is a very strong mystery series.  The plots are fairly complex, so the stories are for older children or young adults.  These books are more sophisticated than the average series book aimed at children.

Diana Winthrop #3 Dog-Lover's Legacy and #4 Beacon Hill

In Diana Winthrop #3, The Case of the Dog-Lover's Legacy, Diana spots a dog swimming in the river.  She jumps in and rescues it.  Diana and the animal shelter try to locate the owner with no luck.  One week later, Diana adopts the dog and gives it to her cousin Jacintha, as it becomes apparent that the dog, now named Duchess, adores Jacintha and has obviously been trained as a guide dog.

The adoption of Duchess creates quite a stir with prowlers showing up near the Winthrop home at all hours of the day.  Soon, Diana learns that Duchess is the key to an inheritance and that the relatives will do anything to assure that they receive the fortune.

In this book we meet Diana's best friends, Megan and Leslie.  Also, Diana is now a senior in high school.

On page 25 Diana thinks it is odd that "a dog should suddenly just—show up in the East River, apparently with no one knowing whose he is or how he got there."  I guess Diana isn't aware of how many people, sadly, abandon their animals for no reason other than that they are tired of them.  Why would it be odd for a dog to show up in a river with no one eager to claim him?  Of course in this particular situation, the dog's appearance in the river is the key to a strange mystery.

This is an excellent book, one of the two best books in the series.

In Diana Winthrop #4, The Secrets on Beacon Hill, Diana is spending the Christmas holidays with her Grandmother Winthrop.  The festivities begin with a birthday party for Diana's cousin Amanda.  As Amanda is presented with a valuable strand of pearls, the lights go out and Amanda claims that somebody pulled at the strand, which breaks with the pearls rolling across the floor.  The pearls are retrieved and taken to the jeweler, who informs Grandmother Winthrop that the pearls are fake. Somehow the real pearls were switched with the fake ones, and Diana must find the culprit.

This book opens with way too many characters at the beginning.  It is necessary, to an extent, to have a large number of characters due to the nature of the story.  The characters are introduced too fast, and as I read the book, I kept having to flip back to remember who was who.  This reduced my enjoyment of the story.

This is an excellent story which could have been outstanding if I could have kept the characters straight.

Diana Winthrop #1 Singing Strings and #2 Old Fort

The Diana Winthrop series consists of six books written under the pseudonym of Kate Chambers.

1.  The Secret of the Singing Strings, 1983
2.  Danger in the Old Fort, 1983
3.  The Case of the Dog-Lover's Legacy, 1983
4.  The Secrets on Beacon Hill, 1984
5.  The Legacy of Lucian Van Zandt, 1984
6.  The Threat of the Pirate Ship, 1984

Diana and her father, Diana's blind cousin Jacintha, and Diana's maternal grandmother, Gran Culhaine, live on different levels of Gran Culhaine's house in New York City.

In Diana Winthrop #1, The Secret of the Singing Strings, Diana receives an urgent call from her cousin, Jacintha.  Jacintha works at the Mannerheim Museum of Music.  The museum has just received a miniature violin made by Stradivarius.  Jacintha's call is about the violin, but she gives no details.  Diana agrees to meet Jacintha immediately.  The meeting never occurs, because Jacintha is hospitalized, nearly killed by a hit-and-run driver.

Diana later deduces that Jacintha had the violin with her, and that it has been stolen!  Jacintha is the prime suspect, but the museum curator refuses to tell the police.  Diana is certain that someone connected with the museum is responsible for the theft.

This is an excellent story.

In Diana Winthrop #2, Danger in the Old Fort, Diana's father is working on location in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on a miniseries.  The production is being sabotaged, and Mr. Winthrop requests that Diana and her friend, Brad Ferriers, take jobs in the production so that they can work undercover. The accidents continue to occur, and Diana quickly realizes that her life may be in danger.

I really enjoyed the early part of the book, but I became partially bored as I continued to read the story.  I have developed a strong aversion to "sabotage on a movie set" plots due to some very bad titles in the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series.  I can no longer enjoy "sabotage on a movie set" books.

Admittedly, this book is above average for this kind of plot, but it still has a few too many characters.  I kept confusing two couples, a brother and sister and a boyfriend and girlfriend.  Removing one of those couples would have made the book more enjoyable.

This book introduces Lydian Sinclair, an investigative reporter who helps Diana on some of her future cases.  By the end of the final book, it is apparent that Lydian is a love interest for Diana's father.

While I greatly enjoyed some parts of the book, I consider it just good overall.