James Ponti. The Sherlock Society. Aladdin, 2024.
Young Adult (YA) author James Ponti is starting a new series of young teen mysteries. The first introduces us to The Sherlock Society. Another Sherlock Holmes spinoff? Not exactly, but sort of. In this case two the four young protagonists are brother and sister Alex and Zoe Sherlock. Their family name is Sherlock, hence the obvious connection.
Their mother is a defense attorney known for her success with impossible cases. Their seventy-three year old grandfather is a retired newspaper reporter. Grandpa could be considered another member of the society as he is the only one who can legally drive. He also gives lots of good advice from his years in journalism.
Alex and Zoe are joined by Alex’s best friend Yadi and Lina, the new girl in school who feels left out otherwise. Ponti does an excellent job of delineating their various personalities. Alex is the one who likes mysteries. Yadi loves filmmaking and is also into conspiracy theories. Zoe is trying to fit in with the popular girls/mean girls of her middle school. Lina’s parents recently divorced. She and her mother have moved from the prairies of Wyoming to the tropical metropolis of Miami, Florida.
The kids first work together to solve an escape room puzzle and decide it would be fun to start of detective agency. Of course, there are certain legal and certification requirements that twelve and thirteen year olds cannot meet. But they can perhaps do some exploring of unsolved mysteries.
Yadi would love to work on the Bermuda Triangle disappearances. But they might find more concrete clues if they can solve the alleged mystery of Al Capone. Capone spent the last seven years of his life in south Florida and was suspected of burying some of his ill-gotten loot somewhere in the Everglades.
Remember the Indiana Jones movies? They begin with Indiana Jones in some kind of predicament. Right away there is action. That technique goes back at least to The Odyssey. The technical term is in medias res (“in the middle of the thing”). So The Sherlock Society opens with Alex, Zoe, and Grandpa leaping for their lives off an exploding boat in the middle of Biscayne Bay. Action! We want to know how they ended up there. So do the police.
The investigation into Capone’s background is interesting, but it does not provide a whole lot of clues about his missing treasure. But while the Sherlock Society is checking things out in the Everglades, they come across a spot where there clearly has been some illegal chemical dumping. Maybe this is something they can look into…
An eclectic group of friends working together to (perhaps) solve a mystery reminds us of Gordon Korman’s Swindle series. That their mother is an attorney who might have insight or connections takes us back to Nancy Drew whose father was also a lawyer or the Hardy Boys and their private detective father Fenton Hardy. I suspect readers who have enjoyed any of those series would like The Sherlock Files.
But there is one more author who it almost seems could have written this—Carl Hiaasen. His books are set in Florida and often involve complicated environmental adventures with young people. Most of his stories involve the outdoors, often the Everglades. So does The Sherlock Society. YA readers who have enjoyed Skink, Squirm, Scat, Wrecker, or Chomp will probably get a kick out this book. Are you sure James Ponti is not a pen name for Carl Hiaasen?