1979, mass market paperback reprint edition, Pocket Books, NY, 199 pages. Young adult novel. Alison lives in New York and loves TV detective shows. She has a chance to be a detective herself, helping a friend do a little sleuthing.
E.W. (Edmund Wallace) Hildick was a British children's book author. He was born in Bradford, England in 1925. After two years service in the Royal Air Force he became a secondary school teacher, then a writer, later moving to the United States to become editor of a literary magazine. He died in London in 2001.
Alison McNair dreams of being an actress and a detective. In this story she gets a chance at a bit of both.
She and her sister Jeannie and her best friend Emmaline work together to solve the mystery that has involved Emmaline's father and may cost him his job. Was the crime pulled off by an organization or a lone perpatrator? Can their informant come through with the key clue to solve the mystery?
The girls take themselves seriously and seriously work to solve the mystery while unravelling the many clues and dead ends.