The Secret Pact

This 1940s mystery introduces Penelope Parker, a sharp-witted aspiring journalist with more nerve than her father's newspaper will accommodate. When no one at the school paper or her dad's publication will touch her story about a strange tattoo on a mysterious sailor, Penny does what any self-respecting teen sleuth would do: she commandeers an abandoned building and starts her own newspaper. The first issue featuring the tattooed man becomes a sensation, earning her grudging respect from the professional journalists who dismissed her. But the story is just beginning. On the fog-shrouded decks of the excursion steamer "Goodtime," Penny and her friend Louise spot a young couple acting strangely, witness a pickpocket incident that leaves a young woman named Tillie Fellows distraught, and find themselves tangled in the early threads of something bigger - a discarded package here, a suspicious passenger there. Penny offers the stranded Tillie five dollars and gains an ally. As the boat glides through the mist, a potential thief watches from the crowd, and Penny's instinct tells her the real mystery has only just surfaced. For readers who grew up on Nancy Drew or the Sue Barton series, this is that same irresistible formula: a plucky girl detective, a world of adult skepticism to overcome, and mysteries that unfold with period charm and genuine tension.