BOBBY LEE CLAREMONT AND THE CRIMINAL ELEMENT


Holiday House Books
Fall, 2017


Let me tell you all about it...


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All aboard for a fast-paced, Jazz Age–era murder mystery set aboard a Chicago-bound train! It’s 1923, and thirteen-year-old Bobby Lee Claremont is leaving the Sisters of Charitable Mercy orphanage in New Orleans, certain a better life awaits in Chicago’s glamorous-sounding mob scene. But his plans unravel when he boards his train and meets the recently widowed Nanette O’Halloran, her two traveling companions, and a cop who suspects the trio of murdering Nanette’s husband. Bobby Lee is sure Nanette’s innocent. But what about her companions? As Bobby Lee digs for answers, he discovers the mob, Prohibition, segregation, and a famed jazz band are all pieces of an increasingly dangerous puzzle.


"Readers will find Bobby Lee to be an optimistic and idealistic hero they can relate to and root for. VERDICT An action-packed story that will inform as much as it entertains. A strong choice for historical fiction shelves." --
School Library Journal

"Chock-full of well-imagined dialogue, the writing has a wonderfully cinematic quality. Mobley swiftly establishes vivid characters and settings and then lets the action unfold while surprising readers with plot twists along the way. A lively, well-researched historical novel." --Booklist STARRED





Honors

  • A 2017 Junior Library Guild Selection



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