Something has to come last in any ordering of items, and for me The Mystery of Holly Lane (1953) is the weakest of these books if only because it’s so unmemorable. Something about curtains and someone hiding money in…furniture…or something is about the best I can do when trying to summon any impression of this whatsoever, and as such, while I can’t criticise its flaws per se, it’s the one I least look forward to revisiting in due course. Given how much I’ve read down the years, most books leave only vague impressions, but the ones left from reading this are far more vague than I’m used to, hence its low placing. [My review]

My abiding memory of The Mystery of the Missing Necklace (1947) is that nothing really happens until the final quarter, when Fatty’s propensity for disguise comes in handy and he puts himself squarely in harm’s way, to the detriment of everything that Goon has — for once, semi-competently — done. A few little changes aside (this is the one where Fatty comes back from school with his voice broken), it feels like Blyton was really struggling to find much to fill this out, and so we get a fair amount of light work that adds up to very little. Maybe I’ll review that on a reread — hell, lists are always a dodgy undertaking, I’ll have cause to regret every ordered list I’ve made at some point — but for now, this lingers low down in my estimations. [My review]

Decidedly more of a thriller, with spooky goings-on in the woods, but notable for feeling like the point in the series where Blyton feels as if she has a handle on how she’s going to make this last. Ern and his terrible “portry” arrive on the scene for the first time, and much fun is had at his expense in a way that feeds into the characters. The detection is fairly rote — some tyre tracks forming most of it, I seem to remember — and the eventual scheme feels like something the Famous Five might stumble upon, but I remember a sense of confidence behind this, Blyton making certain choices because of how the books had gone before and how she saw them shaping up in future. [My review]

Not a great mystery, but a great example of how to develop a series, with much more character work done in unpicking the undeniably thin case at its core. Some good comedy, too, showing Blyton’s light touch as more than simply a refusal to engage with any topic meaningfully — she’s actually funny when she intends to be, which goes a long way. The key concepts here — Fatty enshrined as head of the Find-Outers, Mr. Goon well established as their nemesis — would form the basis of everything going forward, and so the book carries extra weight for the ideas behind the series coming into focus. Good peril in the closing stages, too. So, yes, much to like here even if it doesn’t feel essential. [My review]

If you’re interested in this series from the perspective of them as examples of detection, this is the point on the list where you start paying attention. A pleasingly sensitive depiction of a simple-minded man accused of a theft forms the backbone of this, and the Find-Outers must systematically work through the other suspects to establish who actually did steal the money. Displays rigour, creativity, and many of the stronger aspects of this series in how the facts of the crime are run to ground, and loses kudos only because of a Knox-baiting use of unfairness that swoops in just as I was expecting a masterstroke, and so spoils things somewhat. Until then, though, this is textbook detection. [My review]

A surprisingly savage book for such a genteel author to have written, The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters (1946) really brings home the hideous nature of poison pen letters, and the difficulty faced in trying to run the sender to ground. Clever detection is required in light of there being none of the physical clues that have been so prevalent in earlier entries, and the clever lack of something will always go down well with me (I do so love negative evidence). It’s a little disappointing, if not completely surprising, that this didn’t betoken a change in tone and focus for the series, but it’s also a very bold book for Blyton to have written, and sort of leaves on in wonderment that it ever actually happened. [My review]

The first outing for the Find-Outers set the scene remarkably, providing a blueprint that was adhered to pretty consistently given how long the series would run. The careful, rigorous investigation, keeping multiple suspects in view and discarding them one-by-one as evidence mounts up around their innocence, is delightfully Humdrum, and Blyton does well to keep the lines clear while also muddying the picture of the final outcome. Sure, adults would wish the final revelation had been clued more ahead of time, but its wonderful to see how the promise of this book paid off down the years. [My review]

The pinnacle of not just this particular series but arguably of juvenile detective fiction as a whole, The Mystery of Tally-Ho Cottage (1954) is a cannily-layered mystery with plenty of clever ideas. The disappearance of a pair of criminals at first doesn’t seem to offer much potential — they’ve fled Peterswood, after all — but Blyton works in magnificently clever clewing and some very intelligent developments which provide clear hint after hint about the true nature of things (and it pays off with a conceit straight out of Edgar Allan Poe). But mainly its just a swift, light, and hugely fun time that respects its audience and deserves to be far, far better known in this community. [My review]