Books with author Margaret Clark

"My best friend suddenly won't talk to me and I don't know why." "Yesterday, a group of my so-called friends sniggered when I walked past. What's wrong with me?" We all need friends. Without them, life would be pretty lonely and boring. Friends come in all shapes and sizes, ages and stages. You gradually learn about friendships by having some yourself.

Everyone was talking about the sudden increase in the number of burglaries downtown, including the members of the Junior Detective Club. Their investigation soon lead them into dangerous territory. Death threats had been made to the reporter who uncovered damaging information and to the editor of the newspaper who subsequently refused to print her story. The reporter, Lenore Capshaw, was now missing. No one knew where she was.As Mitch pointed out to his sister, Stella, "If Lenny and her editor were getting death threats because of the information they had, why do you want to get that information?" But Stella had another reason for looking for Lenny Capshaw. One year earlier their father had received death threats because of a controversial legal case he was working on. Shortly after receiving those death threats, their father and mother were killed in a car accident. Now, Stella was convinced that she had to find Lenny before the reporter was killed. It was a matter of life and death.

Mitch and his friend, Gil, were excited about playing baseball on their school's team that season. They played for the love of the game and they were very good. Gil was an outstanding shortstop. He had already gotten calls from scouts. Mitch was a very good second baseman but he planned to be a lawyer like his father. Mitch's father was killed in a car accident one year earlier. He had been involved in a controversial legal case. Some people thought the car accident that killed him wasn't an accident. One of the people involved was still hanging around town. When he sees the name of second baseman, Mitchell Saint Saens, in the Sports Section of the newspaper and comes up with a devious plan. Gil also becomes a target. Someone doesn't want him to be on the team. He tries to scare Gil off the team and out of the country. Baseball season comes to an end in surprising and unexpected ways.

The Junior Detective Club is started by a teenage sister and brother after they discover two headstones with their mother's name on them. One headstone is old, small and is half buried in tall grass. The other is a large, polished headstone. The old headstone has no date of death on it, while the large, polished headstone has a date of death of two months earlier when their mother died. Both headstones have the same date of birth on them. The sister and brother find working on this mystery has pulled them out of their grief and mourning. Their friends join the process.Their success in solving this mystery encourages them to investigate more mysteries. They decide to form the Junior Detective Club.

In this story, the fifth in a series of Junior Detective Club stories, the circumstances around the death of Stella and Mitch's parents almost two years earlier become clear. The teenagers' missing grandfather, wealthy lumber baron Mitchell Saint Saens, returns to Alaska and helps his grandchildren bring the murderer to justice. Since the death of their parents, Stella and Mitch had been living with their other grandparents, Marge and Herb Spencer, but it wasn't working out. Marge and Herb didn't know what their grandchildren were doing most of the time and didn't seem to care. They hadn't provided a good home for Stella and Mitch so custody of the teenagers was given to their new grandfather, the original Mitchell Saint Saens.Life with this new grandfather was so much better. This grandfather wanted to know what his grandchildren were doing. He was concerned about their safety. Now Stella and Mitch could act like normal teenage siblings, but they still held Junior Detective Club meetings.