BOBBY LEE CLAREMONT AND THE CRIMINAL ELEMENT
Holiday House Books
Fall, 2017
Let me tell
you all about it...
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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