The Great Shelby Holmes, middle grade caper stuck in a rut

The Great Shelby Holmes by Elizabeth Eulberg is a middle school book with its tongue slightly in cheek. Shelby Holmes is a 9-year-old local who knows everybody in her New York City neighborhood. She had a new neighbor move in downstairs, 11-year-old John Watson, who is used to moving from place to place. They quickly meet and become friends due to his boredom and her needing someone to assist her.

The two are opposites of an extent. She is very inquisitive, hyper observant and seemingly confident, despite not having too many friends. He is athletic, outgoing and secretly wants a deep friendship that will last. Shelby also has quite the neighborhood reputation for helping the police during their investigations.

On their first walk John realizes that she knows everybody in town-and that they either owe her a favor or show her a certain degree of disdain. The police officer they see assures Shelby that her powers of observation aren’t needed at this time. However, shortly after that they meet up with a peer of hers that does need some help.

It turns out that her prize winning show dog is missing. Holmes and Watson go back to her place to see if they can help find the dog before the next dog show in three days. Back at Tamra’s townhome they’re put into a regal scene with marble floors, tall ceilings, servants and more. It’s a lifestyle that the two would-be crime solvers are unfamiliar with at best.

They meet Tamra’s family who quickly become a rogue’s gallery of suspects. However, before they can get down to real crime solving the two have to get back to their apartment building for dinner.

The chemistry between Watson and Holmes does catch fire, eventually, but it takes a while to get there. Once all of the players are in motion the book gets caught in a rut of having them interview Tamra’s family member, disagreeing and them finding a new target.

Great young adult books have a variety of settings, mixed in with some adventure and humor. The Great Shelby Holmes has the later, but not too much of the first two. The second half of the book dragged down with too many conversations between Holmes and Watson that never went anywhere.  It ends up at a conclusion that isn’t too surprising and I wasn’t vested in by the time it got there.

Its target age is 9-11 young adult readers. I can see some readers, specifically girls, in that demographic identifying with the rolling stone aura of Watson and the smarter than-they-should-be vibe of Holmes.  However, for the most part they’ll grow tired of the repetition of the conversation and location of conversations. The book has some illustrations in each chapter and the vocabulary is appropriate for a 5^th grader to read it as a ‘big kid’ book. It’s not that The Great Shelby Holmes is a bad book, it’s just OK, and there are others that young adult readers will enjoy more.