The Case of the Deadly Counterfeitors begins what looks like a series of adventure books aimed at the teen and young adult market. The series name, "The Ghost Brigade," describes a group of teens who are enlisted by Brigham Young to investigate a counterfeiting ring in Salt Lake City. They are watched over by Orrin Porter Rockwell, who plays a large part in the story.

The premise is pretty simple -- Brigham Young needs to uncover information that will lead to the capture and conviction of the men responsible for counterfeit currency appearing in stores in Salt Lake. He needs someone who could move freely without being suspected of being an informer. He taps the talents of young Seth Dunn who, with his friends, hatches a plot to track down the villians.

What follows is a barely plausible plotline that involves the teenagers, the Mayor of Salt Lake City, the publisher of the local newspaper, the President of the Relief Society, and Rockwell himself. (I have never considered plausibility a necessary condition for enjoying a novel, by the way.)

The story moves nicely as the plotline develops. The characters, however, are somewhat one-dimensional and certainly not very interesting. By the end of the book, you really don't have a feel for who Rockwell really was; he sounds like an old uncle who just got himself in a bad mood every so often.

The book suffers from poor editing, making for some confusion in a few places. Each of the children has his/her talk to perform; the narrative moves you from child to child, sometimes separating the episodes with three stars (***), sometimes with a blank line, and in one notable case, with nothing at all. You have to read the paragraphs several times to figure out who is being spoken of.

My biggest difficulty with the book, however, centers on the underlying theme and consequent behavior of the teens. Brigham Young instructs them that they must carry out their duties without telling anyone, even their parents, what they're doing. In order to pull this off, the children must be less than honest with their parents about their activities. I guess the message is that it's okay to lie, so long as you're lying for the Lord. (Perhaps "lie" is a little too strong -- how about "tell less than the truth"?)

While adult audiences can deal with such complex behavior, it is not clear to me that children ought to be told that they can be less than honest with their parents, if the Prophet tells you to. And since the target audience is precisely these developing minds, I wonder if this was such a good story idea.

I've already purchased the second volume in the series. More later.

... nfx v3.1 Jeff Needle/jeff.needle@giffy.com