The Holly Hotel Mysteries Continue for me through More Gracious Interlibrary Loans

About Interlibrary Loan Books during the Adult Summer Reading Club: some of these books have such nice illustrations. It has been great to reencounter some illustrations by Paul Brown. And Nora S. Unwin illustrated the Holly Hotel Mystery Series. An Unwin Scottish Terrier I once found on the internet resembles a favorite Holly Hotel character, Beetle. On the internet there is only a small amount of such illustrations. 

During the Tacoma Public Library’s Summer Reading Club I reported on Holly Hotel and TheMirrors of Castle Doone, both by Elisabeth Kyle.  Interlibrary loan mysteries by Elisabeth Kyle came in to fill gaps in the Holly Hotel Mysteries story.  In Holly Hotel a girl, Mollie Maitland, in Scotland writes posters that advertise her old house as a hotel,  the guests arrive, and the mystery series begins.  The second book of the group is Lost Karin.  In The Mirrors of Castle Doone, the third book,  boys camp on the moor and discover a mystery to solve, also characters from the two earlier books are present.  The third book, The Porvost’s Jewel, includes some characters from the series but in an unexpected way:  it happens that the villainous pair of jewel thieves and kidnappers reappear to test the defenses of other Scottish children, their activity in Lost Karin gets only a brief mention. 

The second story, Lost Karin, lands Karin Cloot at an airport near Holly Hotel’s Whistleblow Village, finds her taken in by the criminal jewel thief, driven towards a house in the ruined village familiar to Holly Hotel mystery readers.  When “Lou” the jewel thief has a flat tire, Karin chases a rabbit over a wall, falls into a low place on the moor, then overhears the arrived wife and accomplice of “Lou” discussing their real plans. 

When they do not find Karen, she exists on the verges of Whistleblow and is mistaken as a village household helper by an author, Miss Pitkethly.  Miss Pitkethly says, “plots are so difficult to get,” and the whole story seems dream-like. At the very end of the story she starts to type, and her title is Lost Karin.   Meanwhile Mollie Maitland with other child and adult guests search for Karin.  Although much foreshadows their convergence, the story often seems unlikely.  Lost Karin was published in 1946.  In the 1960s and 1970s European travel was often urged “before such places are spoiled”.  The dream-like Scottish village may reflect this “un-spoiled” quality.