"The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan

Remember when I read Girl in Disguise by Greer McAllister a few years ago and lamented that there are no biographies about Kate Warne, the first female Pinkerton Detective?  There still aren't any good adult biographies of her, and that still bothers me.  BUT there are a few more books around these days that involve her, and that makes me really happy, because she wows me.

The Detective's Assistant is a middle-grade fiction book that is a great way to introduce younger folks to Kate Warne.  In the book, Kate's (fictional) orphan niece Nell Warne lands on her doorstep, demanding to be taken in and not shipped off to an orphanage.  Nell is a spunky and clever 11-yr-old who, over the course of the next two years, proves to be a valuable help to her Aunt Kate in solving some important cases and doing some important spy work.

The cases in this book are all based on real ones that Kate Warne really was instrumental in solving.  Thieves and scoundrels make up the first few baddies that Kate and Nell take down, but the climax of the book revolves around The Baltimore Incident, Kate Warne's real-life discovery of a plot to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln on his way to take the oath of office.  And if that doesn't sound like a thrilling and exciting climax for a book, I don't know what does!

This book also touches on the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad, and I thought it did a great job of showing why people had such strong opinions about slavery without getting preachy.  Better than so many adult books I have read, actually!

Particularly Good Bits:

"There is always work to be done in this life... You can be the hands that lift the load, or you can be the burden itself.  You choose" (p. 136).

Aunt Kate once said that family is the folks we choose to be with, not the ones we're stuck with.  But I had my own notions about family now.  To me, family meant taking the folks we're stuck with and choosing to love them anyway (p. 339).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10.  There is some violence depicted, including a discussion of a man being killed with a hammer and a depiction of the blood involved.  A tween girl fires a pistol and talks about hunting for food.  No cussing or improper situations.