Publishers WeeklyCarman (the Skeleton Creek series) delivers a madcap mystery reminiscent of Roald Dahl and Ellen Raskin, complete with bizarre inventions, a mystery involving a missing billionaire and his fortune, and even a crazy elevator or two. At New York City's Whippet Hotel, guests stay in rooms like the Pinball Machine—featuring giant flippers, bumpers, and pinballs—and the Central Park Room, an exact reproduction of the famed park. When Leo Fillmore, the 10-year-old son of the hotel's maintenance man and himself an assistant maintenance crew member, discovers a mysterious purple box while walking the hotel's ducks, he embarks on a mystery that has him sneaking into hidden rooms, evading a pesky six-year-old and other guests, and riding a train through a tunnel of fire.
