• Age: 8 to 12
• Grade: 3 to 7

Howard and Ivy return for a third adventure! This time, the drama’s backstage when someone sets out to sabotage the school play . . . and frame Howard.
“I wasn’t taking the fall for this. You couldn’t force a guy into a job and then blame him when it all went sideways.”

Spring (musical) fever has hit the Grantleyville Middle School Drama Club! Since Ivy Mason is busy with the production, she decides to take a break from sleuthing, while Howard Wallace keeps things running smoothly with their detective agency. Then, just a few weeks before showtime, suspicious things start happening backstage: missing costumes, damaged props, and too many other mishaps to be coincidental. Ivy calls in Howard and their crew to take on the case. Howard tries to lay low and quietly sniff out the perp, but he’s soon brought into the spotlight when he’s framed as the saboteur!

Can the team of intrepid P.I.s clear Howard’s name and catch the culprit before the curtain falls on the big show?

Casey Lyall is the author of Gnome Is Where Your Heart Is, the acclaimed picture book A Spoonful of Frogs, illustrated by Vera Brosgol, and the popular Howard Wallace, PI series. She lives in southwestern Ontario, Canada, where she also works at her local library.

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