Donald J. Sobol continued to write the books for more than 30 years after I'd stopped. I had originally wanted to get one of the books from the 80s, which would have been close to the time that I had moved on. However, Amazon offered me a $5 credit and the only book I could get for that price was "Encyclopedia Brown: Super Sleuth" from 2009. (I really didn't want to spend any of my own money. I don't make money on this blog.)
The nice thing about having the book on the Kindle is that it made it harder to flip to the back of the book to read the solutions. Unfortunately, if other people who have purchased the book "mark" key phrases in the stories, those automatically show up in your copy. (I was able to turn that feature off when I discovered it.)
One of the things I noticed right away was that Sobol appeared to be writing the stories as if they still took place in the 70s. Nickels, dimes and quarters continue to be considered a lot of money for the kids. There's no mention of cell phones and a passing reference to a computer.
And I'd forgotten that Idaville, Encyclopedia's hometown, was supposedly known for being a place where no one, adult or child, ever got away with breaking the law. But I seriously doubt that they managed to catch every single shoplifter. I mean, how would a storekeeper know for certain that a crime had been committed if the thief was sneaky enough?
Another thing I noticed about the stories was that every time a perpetrator is confronted with the truth, he or she will immediately confess. As a child, I realized this gave me a very unrealistic view of how things work when someone is caught in a lie. In real life, the liar will immediately come up with some clever way to cover it up, or say he was mistaken or claim he misspoke. Not to mention that real criminals lawyer up right away. But I have to remember that these books are aimed at 10-year-old kids, who may have a simpler view of the truth.
However, the first story in the book appeared to take a surprising turn. It involved a suspect looking for loot that had been hidden in a hollow tree. A rookie officer is staking out the tree and as soon as someone approaches the tree, he jumps out and tries to arrest the man for the bank robbery. However, the man is smart. He says he was just walking by and they can't prove that he was looking for loot or was involved in the robbery. It looks like he's just going to walk away (without the loot). But Encyclopedia explains what's giving him away. The suspect immediately confesses. If this was real life, the suspect would declare that it wasn't evidence and wouldn't hold up in court. They couldn't have even asked for his ID and would have had to let him go.
So, how did I do? I did indeed manage to solve every single mystery and for the right reasons. (Hooray! 56-year-old me is smarter than 10-year-old me!) However, one of the stories was very ambiguous with how the clue was presented. In "The Case of the Stolen Moonstone," Bugs Meany accuses Encyclopedia of stealing a moonstone ring from the neighbor next door. Bugs claims that after leaving the scene of the crime, he walked up to his house, put his hands up to the window and peered into the dark room. Although Encyclopedia couldn't see him, Bugs could see the ring on his hand.
I found this very perplexing. I know that when I try to look into a darkened room, I press my hands up to the window above my eyes like this:
You can clearly see my wedding ring. And if there was a gem there, it could also be seen. However, according to the solution, Encyclopedia's palms were supposedly against the window, like this:
In this instance, you wouldn't have been able to see the gem. The story indicates that Bugs put his hands up to demonstrate. It doesn't say anything about what position his hands are in. And if he did have the palms facing out, even the officer he was talking to would have pointed out the flaw in his story without having to wait for Encyclopedia to defend himself.
But the biggest detail that got overlooked is that Bugs filed a false police report. A third party, whom Bugs manipulated into helping him accuse Encyclopedia of theft, did admit the truth, but Bugs never did. And since there's no indication that Bugs confessed or was charged with anything, that means he GOT AWAY WITH A CRIME!
But really, this isn't anything for me to be proud of. My enjoyment of the series during my youth did, however, help me in my pursuit to solve real-life mysteries, like figuring out how someone messed up something at work. That has become very useful.
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