Goldie Vance (Volume One) centers on a girl detective with a passion for cars, ideally fast ones. She’s the daughter of a hotel manager and a professional mermaid in Cold War-era Florida. Goldie is a friendly, outgoing, direct girl, and when she hears of a necklace gone missing in her dad’s hotel, she’s right on the case!
The story moves quickly as Goldie solves the mystery through attention to those around her. I appreciated how the story showed that Goldie was more effective because she knew about and talked to folks like maids and window washers, who were overlooked by the more seasoned, traditional detective. Goldie also gets into active adventures—sure, she’s pounding the pavement, but she finds time to burn rubber, too!
The escalating stakes worked well for a quick and engrossing read. To me, it felt a bit too much to go in the span of about 100 pages from tracking down a lost necklace to escaping Soviet spies. That said, it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t my taste, but for those looking for a rompy plot with a couple of girls blushing at each other over their driving skills? It’s definitely a sweet option!
At the end of this volume, the adventure concludes. Major plot threads wrap up. However, there’s enough left open for a sequel. There are characters’ goals, family dramas, romances brewing… if you’ve ever wanted to read a Nancy Drew mystery about a queer, biracial girl detective, this might be the book for you! (And if you never wanted to but just read those words and realized they spoke to you, even better.)
