At the beginning of this book, Sophie, one of the Red Blazer Girls (a group of mystery-solving 12-year-old friends who are also part of a band), is at swim practice, where her nose is broken (accidentally? on purpose?) by Livvy, her nemesis. Soon after getting her nose broken, Sophie finds out that her father has not only met Nate, her celebrity crush, he has also arranged things so that she and the other Red Blazer Girls (Margaret, Becca, and Leigh Ann) can meet him. This would be 100% good news if Sophie didn't feel a bit self-conscious about her nose.

Sophie's meeting with Nate is brief. Without checking with her parents first, she agrees to watch out for Nate's dog, in exchange for the possibility of continued contact with Nate and the $50/day pay he offers her. To further complicate things, Father Julian (if I remember right, he's a teacher at her all girls' Catholic school) has given Sophie and her friends more mysteries to solve. One of those mysteries involves two identical signed baseballs: one is real and one is a fake, and the girls are asked to figure out which one is which. Another one of those mysteries involves a family heirloom, a painting that may or may not be a real Pommeroy. Father Julian wants the girls to try and figure out if the painting is real by using a bunch of photographs to prove that his family owned it prior to Pommeroy's death in 1961.

Even though I had some serious suspension of disbelief problems as the story progressed (so many convenient doubles, and so many potentially valuable items given to a bunch of twelve-year-old girls), I enjoyed myself so much that I didn't really care. Sophie's "voice" (the book is written in the first person, from her perspective) is likable and fun.

The snappy, fast-paced writing was just what I needed to help get me out of a nasty reading slump. Had I been in a different mood, the book might almost have felt too busy and fast-paced. There were tons of things to keep track of, and, although I was sure that fakes and doubles would prove to be an important part of the book's ending, I wasn't sure how much of what was going on would end up being related. There were the baseballs (it occurred to me after I finished the book that it was never revealed who created the fake baseball, and why), the repeated hints that there was more than one little black dog named Tillie, people's comments that Livvy and Sophie looked remarkably similar, the painting that may or may not have been painted by Pommeroy, and the strange, shy artist who was so terrified of a certain someone that he never left his gallery. It was fun trying to put all the pieces together, but sometimes I just had to sit back and go with the flow, there was so much going on.

Although the cover art made it clear that the book is intended for younger readers (according to Amazon.com, ages 9-12), which usually means young protagonists, I originally guessed that Sophie and her friends were 14-years-old, maybe 15. Sophie's life is filled to the brim with extracurricular activities (swimming, her band, investigating mysteries, and hanging out with her friends and Raf, the guy she keeps saying isn't her boyfriend even though I'd argue that he is), and that's before her life is further complicated by trying to take care of a dog. Somehow all this, plus something about Sophie's "voice" and her tendency to swoon over Nate and Raf, had me thinking she was older, but it was still only a slight surprise when I came across a bit in the text that confirmed her actual age.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was a nice, quick read with plenty of likable characters, and it was the kind of mystery that invited you to put the pieces together yourself if you could. Throughout the text are illustrations of the photographs the girls used to try to date the painting, so readers even get the same visual clues that Sophie and the other Red Blazer girls do.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

Sophie and her friends, who call themselves The Red Blazer Girls, embark on solving a case involving mistaken identities, switched paintings, and some priceless family heirlooms.

Took me a minute…. The copyright page is written backwards, backwards letters and words (deliberate ploy!). The fly leaf alludes to a mystery and suggests it be a huge task to solve this mystery as the clue lies within an assortment of hundreds of photographs. This is a problem to solve in itself, but then the flyleaf suggests that the character in charge of this has a propensity to lose things…. The plot thickens!

Sophie and her friends, who call themselves The Red Blazer Girls, embark on solving a case involving mistaken identities, switched paintings, and some priceless family heirlooms. ( )