The Case of the Silver Skull

The Case of the Silver Skull by Scott Corbett (1974) The fourth book of the five book Inspector Tearle mystery series, which has been a favorite of mine since I read the second book, The Case of the Fugitive Firebug—probably not long after it was published in 1969—via a Scholastic paperback, which I still have. I finally have all five—I had to find old library copies of the others—and I still have not read the last one! This one is a classic “crisis-of-faith” story, as Roger Tearle has pretty good reason to doubt his intuition, because the crime is fairly outlandish. And even more moronic than the criminals, are the rich people Roger’s trying to protect from a heist, who treat him with zero respect in spite of his excellent track record. Similar pattern of the previous books—there’s usually one clever adult, but the rest are clueless. I guess they don’t like being schooled by a twelve-year-old. Roger gets so much pushback from these know-it-alls, he’s probably still in therapy. The real star of these books, for me, however, is Roger’s treehouse—that he shares with his sister Shirley and friend Thumbs—which is not only their hangout, but his “office”—desk, chair, file cabinet, and phone (well, it goes to his parents’ kitchen). This was the absolute model for me for the kind of space I envisioned needing to fulfill my dreams—until this day! I’ve had to settle, most of my adult life, for apartments. The other star, here, is the illustrator of all the books, Paul Frame—a guy who really knows how to draw a treehouse.

8.9.26