Maddie's Ghost

November 20, 2023
Saller (Eddie’s War) delivers a strong middle-grade thriller with her latest work. Nearly 90 years after lab assistant Madeleine Eleanor Carruthers is executed, leaving four children behind, her great-granddaughter, Madeleine Stanton—known as Lainie—uncovers bits of her story and sets out to exonerate her great-grandmother and namesake. Like her great-granddaughter, the first Madeleine was born at midnight at the start of a new century, and when a local TV reporter asks for an interview about “Millenium Girl,” Lainie is thrilled. But on set, the reporter blindsides Lainie with sensationalized material about her disgraced relative—and sends Lainie on a crusade to find a way to clear Madeleine’s name, with her friends Seth (who might just become more than a friend) and Elle.
Saller skillfully weaves history and present-day hints to create an irresistible narrative, rich with exciting clues, that readers will eagerly devour. A missing and mysterious blue journal, kept by Madeleine in the 1930s, promises to reveal the truth—if they can find it. Living in the old family Victorian provides Lainie with plenty of tantalizing hidden hiding spots, and readers will hold their breath as they wait to see if each hiding place is the one that will solve the mystery. Lainie’s great-uncles, Madeleine’s sons, provide clues, and one particularly juicy secret comes from their younger sister Cecily, kidnapped and renamed Gracie by her nanny during Madeleine’s trial.
Saller’s talent for thoroughly researching her subjects is on full display—readers will find themselves mentally traveling the Victorian family home right along with Lainie and her friends. Saller also doesn’t shy away from tough subjects, such as unethical drug companies, unjust execution after defending one’s own life, and unnecessary commitment to mental hospitals. Lainie and her friends are thoroughly believable and appealing, leading readers to follow them on this multi-decade-old mystery trail. This tantalizing tale will engage readers from the first page to the last.
Takeaway: This expertly plotted middle-grade thriller will enthrall readers.
Comparable Titles: Katherine Rundell, Paul Griffin.
Production grades
Cover: B
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

May 1, 2024
In Saller's middle-grade novel, a tween and her friends race against time to restore her great-grandmother's good name. The Stanton family--11-year-old Lainie, Lainie's widowed dad, Grandpa Jack, Uncle Daniel, and Uncle Patrick--live in a quirky old mansion in Kenwood, Ohio, and have an unusual tragedy in their past. Back in the 1930s, Lainie's great-grandmother and namesake, Madeleine, was convicted of murdering her supervisor, a pharmacologist. Maddie pleaded self-defense, but the jury discounted her plea and sentenced her to death. After a TV reporter tricks Lainie into an interview about Maddie, the tween swears on air to clear her great-grandmother's name. A lot depends on Maddie's little blue diary, which has gone missing, along with some loose papers inside it that contain key evidence. Complicating things further is the fact that Maddie's youngest child, Cicely (aka Gracie), hid the book decades ago, fearing her mother's anger for her drawing in it; the child was kidnapped shortly after Maddie's death, and was only found in an asylum years later. As Lainie and school friends Elle Mendez and Seth Watson investigate, the fun is in the details of discovery, as well as the crush that Lainie has on dreamy Seth (and her angst about it). This is not Saller's first foray into the mystery genre, which she knows her way around well, but it does stretch credulity a bit that, in the mid-20th century, the state of Ohio would have so easily executed a widow with four young children who'd never committed a crime before. The characterization of the fiercely protective Stanton household is appealing, however, and Saller's descriptions of their house as a Gothic Victorian treasure of hidden hallways, stairways, cubbyholes, and hidden levers to open hidden doors are wonderful. Every few chapters, the book includes check-ins about the fortunes of the little blue diary, which plays a key role in the narrative. A fine mystery with winsome characters and a complicated old house, but one that requires some suspension of disbelief.

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