• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7
• Reading age: 9 to 12

Presenting the mysterious adventures of Alan Nearing and his friends. In The Drowned Violin, there’s something floating in the water ahead of the canoe. It looks dead, whatever it is. That’s where the mystery begins, and eleven-year-old Alan and his friends are determined to solve it on their own, without adult interference. They have all the tools they need: Ziggy’s canoe, Josée’s ability to impress parents, and Alan’s detective instinct. Mix in a gang of bullies on jet-skis, an eccentric hermit, and the theft of a priceless violin, and the stage is set for a fast-action adventure in cottage country.

In the second fun summer adventure, something is haunting the Pioneer Village Park, a mysterious presence that seems determined to get Alan and his friends in trouble. They are spending the tail-end of the summer working as costumed helpers, and when things get weird, the Alan Nearing detective agency starts investigating. Is the poltergeist just a prankster, or are there sinister forces at work?

Includes

• The Drowned Violin
• Pioneer Poltergeist

H. Mel Malton was born in England and emigrated with her family to Canada in the 1960s. She grew up in Bracebridge, Ontario, and spent six years at post-secondary studies in various places, including the Ontario College of Art, Ryerson Theatre School and Acadia University. She is still diploma-free. Mel spent ten years or so touring North America in the professional theatre business as both actor and stage manager, but eventually gave up "the security of working for underfunded arts organizations" for the comfortable safety-net offered by a writing career. She recently moved to Nova Scotia, where she lives in the Annapolis Valley with her two dogs, Karma and Ego. She is a member of Crime Writers of Canada and her first mystery novel, Down in the Dumps (Rendezvous Press, 1998) was short-listed for an Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Crime Novel. Her second Polly Deacon novel, Cue the Dead Guy, was released in 1999, the third, Dead Cow in Aisle Three, was published in the fall of 2001, followed by One Large Coffin to Go in 2003. Her first young adult series, The Alan Nearing Mysteries, began with The Drowned Violin, (2006) and was followed by Pioneer Poltergeist in the fall of 2007.

H. Mel Malton's profile page