With well over one hundred titles to her credit in a career spanning more than four decades, Joan Lowery Nixon demonstrated not only that she was an incredibly prolific writer, but also amazingly flexible. She penned titles from mysteries to historical fiction to nonfiction, and wrote for audiences of all ages. The undisputed mistress of crime fiction and mysteries for young readers, Nixon proved time and again that she had what it took to attract and hold readers of many ages. As Mary Lystad put it in St. James Guide to Young Adult Writers, "Nixon's skillful writing and boundless imagination make young readers want to read on, to find out what surprises wait on the next page and discover if their solutions to her never-ending puzzles are the correct one." "In the field of young adult mystery writers, a field crowded with authors," stated Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje in...