The Vanishing Houseboat

Penny Parker Mystery Stories #2

by Mildred A. Wirt

Penny Parker starred in a series of 17 books written by Mildred A. Wirt Benson and published from 1939 through 1947. Penny was a high school sleuth who also occasionally moonlighted as a reporter for her father's newspaper. Benson favored Penny Parker over all the other books she wrote, including Nancy Drew. "I always thought Penny Parker was a better Nancy Drew than Nancy is," Mrs. Benson said in 1993.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Young Adult, Classics, Ebooks, Historical, Mystery Thriller

146 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson (aka: Mildred Benson)

Writing under Stratemeyer Syndicate pen name Carolyn Keene from 1929 to 1947, she contributed to 23 of the first 25 originally published Nancy Drew mysteries. She was one of 28 individuals who helped produce the Syndicate's Nancy Drew mystery books from 1929 to 1984.

Edward Stratemeyer hired Benson in 1926. She was paid a flat fee of $125 for the first Nancy Drew book written using an outline provided by the syndicate.

Other pseudonyms: Frank Bell, Joan Clark, Julia K. Duncan, Alice B. Emerson, Frances K. Judd, Don Palmer, Helen Louise Thorndyke, Dorothy West, Ann Wirt

Reviews

[Zain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another Penny Parker Mystery.

In The Vanishing Houseboat, Penny Parker is hard at work. She does everything. There is so much going on in this book.

A houseboat is stolen. A poor family is practically homeless and men are disappearing. But it all ties in together.

Penny is all over the place with her busybody self. She gives the poor family food and clothing, helps the owner look for his stolen boat and does what she can to help find the missing men.

This book is full of excitement and is filled with a wonderful cast of characters that keeps the story moving along.

Warning! This book is filled with racial innuendos and stereotypes. 🤨😟🤔

Five stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining mystery listening 🎶🔰

This kindle e-book novella is free from Amazon

Penny Parker is in the middle of the mystery of a missing houseboat and a missing man. Another man 🚹 disappears, then another. Penny and girlfriend are in the middle of uncovering the criminals when things go wrong but there is a happy ending.

I would recommend this series and author to 👍 readers of family and friends relationships adventure mystery novels 👍🔰. 2024

[Gary Sites · Rating 5 out of 5]

This second novel in the Penny Parker series is a fun followup to the TALE OF THE WITCH DOLL. Penny is juggling two mysteries in this one, getting herself in a couple of tight spots. With the help of her Dad, her best friend, Louise, and another great character called Mud-Cat Joe, she’s on another adventure to find three men who disappeared from a spooky bed and breakfast, and a missing houseboat belonging to Mud-Cat Joe.
Another very enjoyable YA mystery story by Mildred Wirt, penned in 1939.

[Jessaka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Penny Parker and her friend Louise desire to each have a ham and cheese sandwich with olives at Rini's cafe. Have you ever heard of putting olives on a ham and cheese sandwich? I imagine that they would be green olives, but I am not sure so that is a mystery to me.

At Rini's they find that an old school mate, Laura Blair, is the waitress, and before they can even finish their sandwiches, Laura is fired. So they decide to try to help her find a new job, one at a mysterious old mansion.

It begins raining on the way to Laura's job interview, so they drive into what they think is an empty shed, only to find that a family is squatting there along with their chickens and a goat. They learn that they are there because their riverboat had disappeared, and so this shed is all that they could find to keep them out of the weather. So Penny tells them that she will help them find their riverboat.

After Laura gets the job at the old mansion, Penny and Louise decide to go next door to a restaurant to eat, and a waiter tells them that the old mansion is not a good place to stay because a man went there a while back and disappeared.

So now we have three mysteries, a man that has disappeared, a riverboat that has also disappeared, and finding out what kind of olives were used in the ham and cheese sandwiches at Rini's. Could all three of these mysteries be connected? I think so.

Mysteries and food. I believe that is what I am interested in right now, and at least I was able to solve the olive mystery, which the book didn't even attempt to do. First, I googled "ham, cheese, olive sandwiches," and I found a recipe for Italian muffaletta sandwiches. They are made with green and black olives but use some other ingredients not mentioned in the book, so that isn't what they made at Rini's. I also found another ham, cheese, and olive recipe online, and it just used green olives. The sandwiches that the Penny and Louise ate were made with toasted buns, so I don't think that they were grilled, but it can be. Just don't toast the bun first. The ingredients that were listed in the book follow this review.

So now you can make this same sandwich and curl up to this very good mystery, as good as any Nancy Drew mystery since the writer of this book wrote many of the Nancy Drew series and all of the Penny Parker ones, and I say "good" because Mildred Wilt was my favorite Nancy Drew and Dana Sisters writer.

Ham, Cheese and Olive Sandwich

1 slice of ham
1 slice of cheese
A few green/and or black olives
Lettuce
Mayonnaise
Toasted bun
Mustard, optional

I believe all the ingredients except the lettuce are diced and mixed with mayonnaise and mustard, and then spread on the toasted buns. I would just put the slice on the bread, chop the olives and put them on the mayonnaise that has been spread on the bread. If any of the olives fall off, well, who cares? I think the idea really is to blend them altogether in order mix in the flavors.

At Rini's this sandwich was 20 cents.



Update: December 29, 2016

My husband was looking for something in our kitchen cupboard and came upon a jar of Mufflu7letta (olive salad mix). At first I didn't know what it was, and then I decided that I must have bought this after reading this book. So I decided to make myself a sandwich like this one, a grilled one though and without the mayonnaise and mustard. Was it ever good, and I am not one to really like ham and cheese grilled. Next time I will add mayo and mustard and see how that goes. Of course, mine own is more like the New Orleans Muffuletta sandwiches, but you have to add salami and use a different cheese than I had.

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mildred A. Wirt, the author of the first several dozen Nancy Drew books under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, penned another series a decade, this one featuring a younger, more puckish version of Nancy Drew in the form of Penny Parker. In The Vanishing Houseboat, Wirt came up with an excellent sequel to her first Penny Parker novel, Tale of the Witch Doll.

Penny and her pal, Louise Sidell, give a ride to a down-on-her-luck former classmate, Laura Blair, who is applying for a maid's position in the town of White Fall. Perceptive Penny realizes something is very wrong with the employers, the Comstocks, a couple who are running what amounts to a bed and breakfast. Penny also finds a family who have lost their riverboat to thieves. As you'd expect, the two tales of woe end up being interrelated, but that doesn't make this short novel any less clever or compelling. The mystery proves even better than that in the first novel.

These Penny Parker novels are like popcorn; you just can't stop yourself at just one or two. I can't wait to launch into the third novel, Danger at the Drawbridge. All of the 17 Penny Parker titles are available for free in the Kindle format, or you can splurge and get novels No. 3 through 17 in one Kindle volume, The Penny Parker Megapack: 15 Complete Novels, for 99 cents.

[Jenn Estepp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another entertaining one, unfortunately marred by the period racism that so often infects vintage mysteries. I think is worthy if you enjoy the genre, but that's a pretty big Behold: Orientalism caveat.

[Bonnie_Rae · Rating 1 out of 5]

WOW. Hella racist. What good story there was quickly got taken over by hardcore anti-Chinese racism. The villain is named Sing Lee, talks in sing-song English, runs a laundry (wow, that stereotype goes way back), and his fellow Chinese as described as possessing "ugly, cruel faces" who were the original Peeping Toms. They are also called "Chinks", because of course they are. Maybe this book should have stayed out of print.

[Vaughn Hayden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrific! A very entertaining book. Looking forward to reading # 3

[Library_Dweller89 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good mystery, although there was definite racism as you would expect from the time period.

[Miriam · Rating 2 out of 5]

As weird as the first one, and more racist. It reminded me a bit of a Scooby Doo cartoon.

[Talent Chekeche · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first story I have read of this series. Although I am an old adult, I enjoy going back to the Hardy Boys I read as a kid. The girl series adventures are just as fun.

[John Ramon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent story in the series marred by period racism.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mildred Wirt was the first author hired by the Stratemeyer Syndicate to write the Nancy Drew series. Constrained by specific phrases, attitudes and outfits, Wirt helped bring life to Nancy but felt more life was needed. She had the opportunity to write a character more like herself in Penny Parker. Wirt felt Parker was a better Nancy Drew than Nancy. Penny was not perfectly polite nor was she as socially graced and Nancy. Wirt thought she was a lot more fun.

Reading Penny Parker is like reading about a spunkier Nancy Drew that surprises you with her daring. I found her delightful. The Nancy books also have undergone drastic cuttings to simplify them, a fate Penny never endured. That makes the story deeper and more engaging for older audiences. However, one thing Penny's books need that Nancy's received was excising the prejudice stereotypes and racial slurs. Published in 1939, the wasp-i-ness is abundantly evident.

Would Penny Parker be as interesting without the historical backdrop of being Nancy's mirror image in a parallel universe? I'm not sure. But revisiting Nancy's books as an adult (the abridged versions are the only available) I've found them too juvenile to enjoy. Penny Parker kept me on the edge of my seat.

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's actually two stories going on in this one. One story revolves around a family that lives on a houseboat. Their houseboat was stolen and Penny helps them with food while she tries to find their stole boat.

The second story revolves around a friend of Penny's who takes a job at a mansion that seems to have a bad reputation with someone having disappeared from room 7. The people running the place are very nasty, particularly the wife who works Laura, the friend, extremely hard.

There's also a Chinese laundry that is involved in the story.

This is a good story involving a lot of detective work on Penny's part, a variety of bad people, excessive greed and suffering on the part of poor people. I've read three of these books now and this is my favorite of the three.

[Ralph · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never read any Nancy Drew books, but I remember my sisters reading them when we were growing up.

Mildred Wirt wrote many of the Nancy Drew books, and my guess is that there's a similarity to this series of books. After all, if something works, why not reuse it?

I doubt that this book is a very realistic portrayal of how things were in the U.S. in the late 1930s--but still, it's a glimpse. Quick to read and interesting just from that angle.

[Laura Bang · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do love Penny Parker, but watch out for gross 1930s racism. And unfortunately those stereotypes play right in to the resolution of the mystery.

I read this one aloud with my mom while I was home for the holidays. We used to read Nancy Drew mysteries together when I was a kid, so it was a fun throwback. And we did enjoy the story despite all the cringing at the awful racism.

[Dina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is #2 in the Penny Parker series by Mildred Wirt. I am liking the series pretty well so far. I've had these books for awhile, but am just now getting to read them. Some of them were pretty hard to aquire. Two of them are reprints I purchased from Jim Towey.

[Joanna Warrens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read but some vintage racism

I enjoyed this book a lot. It was written in the 1930s and their are some racist parts. However if you can live with that the characters, setting and mystery make it a fun summer read.

[Eric Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally got my hands on this one! I enjoyed it much more then the first one. The mystery was more intiguing and fun then tale of the witch doll. So overall, a great mystery that will keep you turning until the end, and it desrves 4 stars.

[Gail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in the late 1930's, a young adult mystery with a main character much like Nancy Drew. Fun read from a more innocent time.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun romp in spite of the rampant racial stereotyping! Penny Parker is quite different in character than Nancy Drew -- more engaging.

[Jackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

An older book, but still an interesting read.

[Sue Ann Simpson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best of Best Mysteries

Loved this book!
It was a fun,very pleasant read. I'm ready for another mystery with Penny & Louise.

Hard to put down...

[Lanelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some politically incorrect issues as you might expect from that time. An interesting story.

[Donna Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

Kept me interested throughout and couldn't wait to find out who done it. looking forward to reading more by this author.