A Middle Grade Literature series following the adventures of Ricky Kidd, his friends Mike, Ralph and Lisa, and Ricky’s young brother Joel. As the title would imply, they’re a group of mystery magnets who get caught up in some kind of hoax or mystery requiring a lot of remorsefulness to solve, and sometimes even survive, always having a good amount of laughs and decent plot twists. The story is also notable for Christian themes and messages which often relate to the struggle or Character Development of one or more guest characters. The series ran from 1990 to 2003, consisting of fifteen books and one short story collection:
- Lost Beneath Manhattan
- The Mystery Tribe of Camp Blackeagle
- The Phantom Outlaw of Wolf Creek
- The Disappearing Jewel of Madagascar
- The Missing Map of Pirates Haven
- Creature of the Mists
- The Race for the Park Street Treasure
- The Downtown Desperadoes
- Shroud of the Lion
- Madness at Moonshiner's Bay
- Sunrise at the Mayan Temple
- Terror on Kamikaze Run
- Tyrant of the Badlands
- The Volcano of Doom
- The Legend of the Gilded Saber
- Short Cuts
Tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Ricky and his friends' pranks, deliberate or otherwise, towards each other can inspire this. Notably, in The Disappearing Jewel of Madagascar after Ricky accidentally Mixes in some real worms with fake licorice ones Mike was eating for a carnival.
- Mike paused. "Unfortunately, this puts you one trick up on me. And you know how long it's going to be before I find this the slightest bit funny?" I shook my head. Something hard to do with someones hands around your neck. "At least five more seconds" he muttered. Then Mike sat down and howled with laughter.
- Adorably Precocious Child: Joel, a shy kid who's strongly attached to his teddy bear and shows concern for his brother and others while getting into trouble at times.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Cute as he can be, Joel has a tendency to screw things up for Ricky and his friends at least once a book by following them around, surprising them at the wrong times and providing Unwanted Assistance.
- The Atoner: In ‘’Legend of the Gilded Saber’’ Mike’s uncle was a neglectful parent obsessed with making money for most of his life, but has recently been patching up his relationship with his son (a recovering drug addict), reaching out to Mike, and using most of his money for charitable purposes, after finding out he’s dying and having that put his priorities in order for him.
- Bears Are Bad News: A bear threatens Rick and Joel in The Mystery Tribe of Camp Blackeagle.
- Big Brother Instinct:
- Any time Joel is in danger Ricky will frantically beg on his behalf or go charging to save him.
- A group of Hispanic street kids who appear throughout Lost Beneath Manhattan turn out to be the older siblings of another boy Mean Gene Delaney kidnapped, trying to find him.
- Big Brother Worship: Deep down, Joel seems to feel this way about Ricky. Clem Pickett in Madness at Moonshiners Bay also felt this way about his brother once, before they both wrongly suspected each other of murder.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: The children and grandchildren of Madman Charlie in Madness at Moonshiners Bay, with their conflict over the treasure, and how one was once accused of murdering another.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Several villains act honest and compassionate but are extremely cruel.
- Erika and Mav in Shroud of the Lion.
- Dr. Manford in The Missing Map of Pirates Haven.
- Roderick Kay in Sunrise at the Mayan Temple.
- Blake Hotridge in Madness at Moonshiners Bay.
- Thelma in Terror on Kamikaze Run.
- Blind Musician: Saxophone player Stonewall Sawyer in Race for the Park Street Treasure is blind due to a childhood battle with dysentery in an era with poorer medicine.
- Bluff the Eavesdropper: During The Race for the Park Street Treasure Ricky and his friends trick two rival treasure hunters into researching the wrong books for clues by asking for the wrong list while they're in earshot.
- Broken Ace: In Madness at Moonshiner's Bay, Sheriff Leroy was a rising FBI star (and a pretty athletic-looking guy) before he was forced to arrest his own brother Clem for murdering his uncle -although he was actually framed- and also compromised his principals by hiding evidence in the case in a failed attempt to keep Clem from going to prison. When Clem was convicted anyway, he felt that he'd betrayed his principals for nothing causing him to resign from the FBI and become an apathetic, rural sheriff who doesn't watch his weight.
- Bully Hunter: In the short stories, Ricky can be this (albeit in a non-violent way) and another classmate Harvey is noted as being the only person who can stop a bullying classmate (either through physical intimidation or scaring him with a snake).
- Camera Fiend: Ralph is always taking pictures of people whether they like it or not. Rick and Mike try to prank him for this in Lost Beneath Manhattan switching his camera for a fake one that shoots water. This gets them into trouble when the first picture he tries to take with it is a museum security guard they'd been arguing with and with whom he was trying to make amends.
- Comic-Book Time: The main characters never age across what seems to be multiple summer vacations, although this might be justified if not all of the books are meant to be in the same continuity.
- Commonality Connection: Joel befriends paraplegic former fighter pilot Mad Eddie due to his fondness for kite flying, with Eddie understanding what it's like to want to fly.
- Companion Cube: Joel treats his teddy bear like it were his own child.
- Cool Uncle: Lisa's uncle Carl, Mike's paternal aunt and uncle and Mike's maternal aunt and uncle all host the gang at one point or another and are fairly pleasant and helpful characters.
- Crazy Cat Lady: Doreen from The Missing Map of Pirates Haven has fifty-two cats and is a somewhat obsessed treasure hunter.
- Death by Childbirth: It turns out that Lisa’s aunt died this way (as did the child).
- Disguised in Drag: The bad guy of ‘’The Disappearing Jewel of Madagascar’’ wears a dress to impersonate a woman.
- The Dreaded: In Sunrise at The Mayan Temple the mere mention of Señor Castillo is enough to make most locals flee in terror.
- Drugs Are Bad: Ricky and his friends make commercials with this message in ‘’Shroud of the Lion’’. In The Missing Map of Pirates Haven, Lisa's uncle also feels this way due to his wife and unborn child having died during premature labor while he was high and unable to take them to the hospital.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- The villain of ‘’The Phantom Outlaw of Wolf Creek’’ is a nasty piece of work, but claims to not be a murderer, sealing the kids inside a tunnel, but only planing to have them trapped there for a couple days to have time to dispose of evidence and such. Unfortunately, the explosion doesn’t just collapse the tunnel entrance, but the whole tunnel, causing a far more serious situation and desperate life and death struggle to get out.
- The villains of The Missing Map of Pirates Haven are willing to murder children to get the titular treasure, but they draw the line at needless murder of children, letting Joel go due to him being too young to testify against them or have a good understanding of what's going on. They also set five extra minutes on the dynamite timer they plan to use to kill them in order to give Lisa's uncle Carl extra time to pray after he requests it.
- Andy (and to a lesser extent Neil) are reluctant at the idea of hurting kids and briefly try to quit before being threatened into staying in Shroud of the Lion.
- In Madness At Moonshiners Bay, after being overpowered the two masked henchmen insist that they were only trying to scare the kids, only took the kidnapping job in the first place due to feeling that if they said no then someone else with less scruples about hurting kids would take it (and of course the money helped), and also refuse to let their day-job employer Sheriff Leroy Pickett be Wrongfully Accused of involvement even when admitting the truth incriminates them further.
- Elmer Johnson from that same book isn't evil an in fact helps the characters largely out of Good Samaritan instincts but admits to being an alligator poacher and is deeply disturbed by the lengths the villains have gone to, saying there's some things even a law-breaker like him can't ignore.
- Evil Gloating: Also every book where the main characters (or anyone else) gets held prisoner by someone intending to kill them involves quite a bit of gloating.
- Evil Poacher: In Sunrise at the Mayan Temple one of the rackets of the villains is smuggling endangered animals.
- Evil Twin:
- Brother Phillip’s separated-at-birth twin is trying to frame him for the purposes of committing a crime in The Downtown Desperadoes.
- In Terror on Kamikaze Run Peter Avery is also a real jerk in contrast to his warmer twin JP.
- Familial Foe:
- In Legend of the Gilded Saber, the Big Bad is primarily concerned with wronging Mike's uncle, but also clashes with Mike and his cousin during the novel.
- Decades before Madness at Moonshiner's Bay, the Big Bad blackmailed Mr. Johnson into faking his own death while also threatening the lives of Johnson's children. He then tried to frame one of Johnson's nephews for the nonexistent murder, only to frame the other nephew by mistake. In the present, both nephews and one of Johnson's sons help bring the bad guy down.
- First-Name Basis: Multiple characters, most notably Sheriff Leroy in Madness at Moonshiner's Bay. His last name is Pickett, something which turns out to be important.
- Forced into Evil:
- Norbert and Jimmy from The Volcano of Doom simply did a minor job (which they suspected, but didn't know for sure was related to smuggling) for the money to pay some heavy debts but when the delivery failed, are threatened with death unless they retrieve it, leading to their run-ins with the gang.
- Two minor henchmen who appear in one chapter of Madness at Moonshiners Bay are later mentioned as being ex-convicts who were blackmailed into doing so with the threat of being framed for parole violations.
- In The Legend of the Gilded Saber an accomplice to the museum robber was deliberately and systematically bankrupted by the criminal (who tricked him into putting his money in all of the wrong stocks) to make him desperate enough to agree to let the guy spend a night conducting research in the museum without authorization in exchange for a little money. He had no advance knowledge of the theft, and only helps the villain cover it up (with no small amount of bitterness) because he'll be fired from the museum and/or arrested if the truth about how he unintentionally abetted the theft comes out.
- Friend to All Living Things: Expect Joel to befriend approximately 80% of non-dangerous animals to appear in the series.
- Gendered Insult: Referenced in one book where Lisa was once told she "threw like a girl"; she proceeded to practice her pitching until the next boy to catch one of her throws broke two fingers.
- Gone Horribly Right: In The Missing Map to Pirates Haven Ricky, Ralph and Mike try to lure Joel away from their secret fishing hole (and to a dud one) by faking getting a huge fish out of a worthless fishing hole. It works like a charm but then it turns out that the mayor saw the whole thing and now he’s there at the fishing hole and they’re scared to death of being found out but can’t tell the truth without alerting Joel to their deception.
- Good Shepherd: Heroic Bystander street missionary Brother Phillip, from Lost Beneath Manhattan and The Downtown Desperadoes.
- Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: Mike wears a Hawaiian T-shirt just about everywhere he goes (and the group end up as tourists a lot), with Ricky noting mike's uncanny knack for always wearing a shirt that clashes with his (deliberately mismatched) sneakers.
- He Knows Too Much: The main characters nearly get killed over this in the climaxes of multiple books. It’s averted in Madness at Moonshiners Bay though, where two masked criminals who the kids have identified (and who know the kids have recognized them) reply that while they may know who the two are, they won’t be able to prove it as long as they have their masks on and so they don’t have to kill them. Their boss on the other hand does mock and prepare to shoot someone whose figured everything out before being arrested.
- Have You Told Anyone Else?: Comes up several times. In Race for the Park Street Treasure Ricky hasn't told anyone and is threatened with a gun after saying so. In Terror on Kamikaze Run he states that his friends know everything, and the villain gives serious thought to going out and killing them too.
- Head-Turning Beauty: Lisa, at least as far as Ricky is concerned, with her introduction in each book generally mentioning how her smiles distract him.
- Heel–Face Turn: Robert in Terror on Kamikaze Run ultimately turns against his partner for wanting to kill Ricky.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: In Creature of the Mists, the bad guy accidentally -nonfatally- poisons himself due to cutting his hand while he was preparing the poisoned food.
- Hollywood Atheist: Zigzagged. The books have a fair amount of characters who openly don't believe in God and often trace this back to some traumatic past, but few of them have anything against people who do believe or try to change their mind, and most of them find belief again (sometimes due to life-threatening circumstances).
- Instantly Proven Wrong: As the clueless cops from The Missing Map to Pirates Haven accuses the cast of having made everything up, there’s a nearby explosion caused by a bob the villain set which proves their claims.
- I Owe You My Life: The motivation of one of the villains accomplices in Sunrise at the Mayan Temple, having had his life saved by the Big Bad when they were flying fighter planes together.
- It's a Costume Party, I Swear!: Mike once got Ricky to dress up as a a banana to Lisa’s birthday through this.
- King of the Homeless: Mean Gene Delaney, the Big Bad of Lost Beneath Manhattan has a lot of phony panhandling operations, at least seven other beggars as henchmen, and a reputation for cowing various people, and forcing them away from his turf. He and his men also aren't above kidnapping young children to make their begging performances look more convincing, which brings them into conflict with Ricky and the others.
- Lady Macbeth: Thelma, who convinced Robert Avery to commit tax fraud in the first place all the while planning to steal his money once they get married, and also urges him to kill Ricky for discovering them, something Robert refuses to do.
- Little Miss Badass: Lisa and Mike’s cousin Sarah are both fairly athletic, quick-witted and useful in the books where they appear.
- Magical Native American: The Indian family in The Mystery Tribe of Camp Blackeagle are expert woodsmen (the father is capable of staring down a bear) who feel deeply invested in the land and upset at any mistreatment of it.
- Mayor Pain: Subverted, Mayor Thorpe is a fairly jovial Reasonable Authority Figure, but Lisa's dad (who works as the deputy mayor and argues with Thorpe a lot) sees him as this.
- Mistaken for Special Guest: In Sunrise at the Mayan Temple six plane tickets arrive for a "Joel Kidd" and they decide it must be for another Joel Kidd, but go on the trip for a vacation, with their parents arguing the tickets are non-refundable so they should use them and then partially reimburse the rightful owner rather than have them go to waste. It quickly becomes apparent that the people in Mexico were expecting someone else in the Joel Kidd party of six, and hijinks ensure. It ultimately turns out that while the people who meet them were expecting someone else, the person who sent them the tickets did send them to the right Joel Kidd and was using them as unwitting couriers to deliver a final payment and message to the villain that he wanted out of the racket.
- The Mole: In Shroud of the Lion Jericho Stone is being blackmailed for his past association with terrorists but he was really undercover with the CIA at the time and is only going along with the blackmail to draw out a mole in the CIA.
- Morally Bankrupt Banker:
- Mr. Fredericks, the retired banker in the kids hometown has a reputation as a tight-fisted Child Hater in the first book but is more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, donating the rest of the money for the class trip after some of Joel's antics make him laugh during a school play.
- Mr. Keyster in The Phantom Outlaw of Wolf Creek is a smug, money-grabbing man who cheats the main characters out of the promised reward when they find the bank money. and who stole oil rich land he knew was valuable from a friends daughter under false pretenses and is willing to hold the kids hostage to cover that up.
- Mystery Magnet: As the title suggests, the characters get unwittingly sucked into a mystery every time they go on a trip out of town, and sometimes even without leaving town.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Mean Gene Delaney.
- Negated Moment of Awesome: This happening to Ricky is a Running Gag that shows up in more than half of the books. His moments of triumph (describing how he outwitted the bad guys, figuring out where the stolen jewels are etc.) is constantly undermined by things like Joel taking something or pulling a Stealth Hi/Bye that makes Ricky loose his composure, or sitting on an ant mound by mistake.
- Never Found the Body: Delilah Abercrombie, the titular character in The Phantom Outlaw of Wolf Creek robbed a bank, but vanished in a flood while fleeing, with an article of clothing turning up in the aftermath, but no sign of Delilah herself ever showing up, adding to the legend that she haunts the area. The final chapters confirm her survival.
- New Old Flame: Jennifer for her long-ago Brother Phillip when they reconcile at the end of Downtown Desperadoes.
- No One Sees the Boss: In Sunrise at The Mayan Temple, Senyor Castillo, the owner of the archaeological site, is constantly away on business while his assistant Roderick Kay manages things. Many of the locals believe Castillo to to be the embodiment of a god demanding Human Sacrifice, while Kay claims that there are rumors that Castillo is dead; having been sacrificed to that very God, and the local police consider him a person of interest in smuggling operations. It eventually turns turns out that Castillo is an Invented Individual and Kay is the real boss.
- No Sympathy: Sam Keyster the banker who was held up by Delilah Abercombie flat out states that he thinks she did die in the flood that followed and that she deserved it as far as he is concerned. This is especially galling considering how he knew good and well how Delilah had only been tying to take back the proof that he'd cheated her out of her father's land when she was 14.
- Not-So-Final Confession: Zigzagged in The Phantom Outlaw of Wolf Creek. When facing possible death, Ricky, Ralphy and Mike confess to various pranks pulled in the past, but not ones they’ve committed, but rather ones that another member of the group had done. And of course they all survive.
- Oddball in the Series: While most of the books are standalone stories which don't reference each other in major ways, The Downtown Desperadoes is a sequel to the first book, Lost Beneath Manhattan, and also explicitly references events from The Race for the Park Street Treasure. Madness at Moonshiners Bay is also set right after Shroud of The Lion and references its events.
- Old Cop, Young Cop: Local policemen Miguel and Carlos in Sunrise at the Mayan Temple, with them largely being described in relation to their respective ages.
- Parting-Words Regret: The last words Mike's cousin Sarah ever said to her father (who died in a farming accident later that day) were that she hated him for not letting her go to a movie. Sarah is deeply guilty and traumatized about this a full year later and as a result has trouble believing that his dying message “Love” was meant for her instead of just her mother.Sarah: The last things he heard from me were the most terrible words I could think to say. And he had had a half day of dying to think about it.
- Police Are Useless: Zigzagged. Sometimes they are, but often they had a good inkling of what was going on the entire time (the series had multiple Undercover Cop Reveals) or show up to serve as The Cavalry.
- Police Brutality: In Madness at Moonshiners Bay, while Clem is in jail, he has several bruises. One of the deputies claims he Fell Down The Stairs while Clem says those "stairs" were Leroy's fists. The matter is complicated by the fact that Clem and Leroy are brothers, and Clem had accidentally pressed Leroy's Berserk Button related to his having to arrest Clem all those years ago.
- The Quiet One: Joel. Ricky once describes him as speaking "about two words a year", and several books have him speak less than ten sentences throughout the story, while it's doubtful that any have him say more than 20.
- Real After All: In Creature of the Mists, the hunt for the Ogopogo seems to be a dud (and contained some intentional misdirection by people involved) but then at the end of the book there's a mysterious wake in a picture that Joel took at a time when there where no boats in the area that could have made it.
- Real Men Love Jesus: Several of the more positive adult figures are religious.
- Right Behind Me:
- In The Missing Map of Pirates Haven Ralphy is critically discussing how Lisa's father hates her uncle, unaware that he is right above them trimming some trees.
- Ricky referring to Old Lady Busby as an "old cookie" right as she's coming into the room in Sunrise at the Mayan Temple, although it was mixed in with some more positive comments so she shrugs it off.
- Roguish Poacher: The older members of the impoverished Johnson family in Madness at Moonshiners Bay are alligator poachers, but they feel some self-loathing about what they do and are quick to save the main characters from kidnappers.
- Sarcasm-Blind: Ralphy is poor at recognizing snark.
- Samus Is a Girl: Done twice in The Phantom Outlaw of Wolf Creek with both the local hermit who turns out to be fugitive bank robber Deliah Abercombie and her dog.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax:
- The Phantom Outlaw of Wolf Creek has someone appearing dressed up as Delilah Abercombie (a bank robber presumed dead for decades) believed to be searching for her treasure. It's actually Delilah herself, using a wig to look young again.
- The last quarter of The Mystery Tribe of Camp Blackeagle has someone fake Indian spirits haunting the camp site. the culprits are local Native American boys who feel that the campers don't respect the land.
- Terror on Kamikaze Run has a ghost supposedly appear in the woods near a dying man's ski resort as a way of signaling a coming disaster. It's a hologram being done in order to provide an explanation for the accidents and temporarily drive the resort's price down and lower the estate tax.
- The locals being convinced that there is a Mayan God demanding sacrifice in Sunrise at the Mayan Temple is just to trick them into giving up valuables and not going to the police to report disappearances which are really kidnappings for slave labor.
- The Scrooge: Old Lady Busby has a reputation for cheapness. Her father was even worse, being known as "Moth Wallet" due to how rarely he opened his wallet. Mr. Fredericks is also considered tightfisted but is more approachable and willing to donate money for the class trip after the school play makes him laugh.
- Shame If Something Happened: The villain of Madness at Moonshiners Bay threatened someone by saying that he'd send him to jail and make sure his children all had "unfortunate accidents'' while he was locked up.
- Siblings in Crime: The three henchmen in Tyrant of the Badlands are brothers who are willing to commit murder. Downplayed in The Mystery Tribe of Camp Blackeagle where the culprits are brothers, but are fairly non-malicious and mend fences with the kids by the end of the book.
- The Smart Guy: Ralphy is the most studious of the group.
- Spoiler Cover: Happens a few times. The covers always accurately represent something that happens in the book, and sometimes in a big way. For instance, in The Mystery Tribe of Camp Blackeagle the cover reveals the identity of one of the pranksters, and in The Missing Map of Pirates Haven, two characters Ricky was suspicious of for part of the book are tied up along with him and his friends, while someone else who is present when they're captured isn't tied up with them, providing a hint that he's The Mole.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Joel loves doing this and is compared to a ghost regularly.
- Straw Feminist: Mike's cousin Sarah in The Phantom Outlaw of Wolf Creek and Sheila in The Mystery Tribe of Camp Blackeagle both get a bit of this insisting that girls can do anything that boys can do. Lisa Higgins can have similar ideas but prefers to show this (like by out-pitching them at baseball) rather than just argue about it.
- Strong Family Resemblance: The Indians in The Mystery Tribe of Camp Blackeagle, to the point where this is a major factor behind Ricky realizing that the culprits are the sons of a man he met.
- Taxman Takes the Winnings: In The Missing Map of Pirates Haven while the government doesn't exactly take all of the treasure it's mentioned that they want their cut and will need years to appraise and distribute it properly before the people who found it get any.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Lisa, who is the best baseball player in Jamesville and quick to participate in the adventures, but has a feminine streak as well.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Happens almost once per book, with there having been some preparations made to do things like gather incriminating evidence, escape from their captors or sabotage the villains getaway vehicles which Ricky only explains to the reader (and often to someone else, like the police officers on the scene) after the fact.
- The Vamp: The Big Bad of Terror on Kamikaze Run is a seductress with a violent streak.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Ricky and Mike can snipe at each other a lot, but are good friends.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: In The Phantom Outlaw of Wolf Creek, the villain tricked Delilah into taking a lot of the bank's money with her while he was handing over the deed to the property he'd stolen from her, in order to frame her as a bank robber and discredit anything she had to say.
