The Barn Owl Mystery

Strange things are happening at Patterson Lodge.... Playwright Gray Patterson wants to open his ancestral mansion as an inn, but sabotage and spooky noises are preventing it. A writer of Broadway whodunits, he's clueless until Allison Lopez and Riley Travis show up. These 12-year-old sleuths discover secret passages, solve baffling riddles, and face dangers to unmask the guilty party. They even find a long-lost treasure!

Fast paced and action packed, The Barn Owl Mystery stars two young cousins who live across a country lane from each other in Butternut Village. Riley loves New Hampshire's deep woods. He's impulsive, quick witted, never gets lost, and always wears a backpack with survival gear.

In contrast, Allie is a city girl who grew up in Mexico. She's sophisticated, competitive, doesn't like getting her clothes dirty, and fears getting lost because all trees look alike to her. But her Latina street smarts ensure that she always lands on her feet.

Each of them is good at everything the other one isn't. With these two best friends on the trail, it's criminals beware!

This book, part of the award-winning Butternut Village Mystery Series, appeals to girls and boys alike. Nurturing and inclusive with diverse characters, it confronts its young protagonists with challenges they must solve for themselves, makes performing research an exciting part of solving each mystery, provides a connectedness to nature and outdoor summer activities too often missing in today's world, and avoids negative undertones to leave young readers with a sense of well-being and agency.