Love and the Bottle

"I didn't do it." Polly is innocent of smashing things in the mall and painting magpies everywhere, but with people mistrusting anyone who's a teenager, she's going to have to find out who did it.It's looking like a long, dull summer for the sketching sleuth Polly McDoodle. Her partners in crime-solving, Kyle Clay and Erin Darby, are either off at camp and visiting family. Her mom is on a never-ending "clean up your room" campaign. But things start to pick up when Polly discovers a little kid trying to take over the Clay/McDoodle Detective Agency headquarters, namely the tree house in the alley behind their apartment building.Then stuff starts happening at the mall. Painting supplies are stolen and Polly gets blamed. Her sleeping bag gets swiped. Someone smashes her artist friend Isabel's wall mural, smashes the bus shelter window, smashes a car in the parking lot. Little cartoon magpies begin appearing everywhere. Is it the "mall rats with the black hats? that the old security guard is quick to blame? Will the rest of the detective agency get back into town in time to help out with the answers?Mary Woodbury is the best-selling author of the young adult title The Ghost in the Machine , the Polly McDoodle Mystery Series, and Jess and the Runaway Grandpa , a finalist in the Silver Birch Young Readers Choice Award, and a Canadian Children's Book Centre "Outstanding Title of the Year."Kerr, Don is the author of 'Love and the Bottle', published 2000 under ISBN 9781550501612 and ISBN 1550501615.