I’ll admit, I’ve cooled a little on the Ken Holt series by husband-and-wife team Sam and Beryl Epstein, in part because they can be expensive to track down. But this first experience remains a distinct highlight, with young Ken Holt unpicking the mystery of a car that was speeding towards another on a narrow stretch of road…and then vanished from existence. Not only is the mystery cleverly and simply explained, the book itself goes on to one of the most intense young-detective-in-peril sequences that I’ve encountered in the form, and manages to tie everything up satisfactorily, intelligently, and without ever speaking down to its intended audience about the peril faced. I wish I could find something else this good in the series. [My review]

On another day, this might be replaced by The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure (1966), another of Robert Arthur’s Three Investigators series that displays his cunning and boundless energy when it came to crafting exquisitely-wrangled cases for Jupe, Bob, and Pete to handle. Screaming Clock (1968) wins out today because of how cleverly the title conceit plays into the mystery overall, added to some clever linguistic detection and a more focussed sense of how these boys achieve their aims through intelligent reasoning. It’s fascinating to wonder what these books would have gone on to become had Arthur not died in such an untimely manner, but the best of what he left — both here and in his other writing — was great and deserves a great deal of respect. [My review]

I have TomCat to thank for bringing Death Knell (1990) to my attention, with this snowbound story of a bell that seems to foretell death and a body found in a bolted room with a heavy stone tablet leaning against the door for added complexity. There’s an element of disappointment as to how that impossibility is achieved, but the book compels itself for its eerie scene-setting and the steady way Wilde builds tension in the small community as the murderous bell signals more doom. Great to see someone taking the time to build suspense with their setting in this way, and the inclusion of an impossible crime in an era when really very few people cared about impossible crimes is simply a bonus. [My review]

Not only does Stuart Gibbs’ fourth FunJungle book Panda-Monium (2017) contain a great puzzle with a superb piece of in-your-face evidence to untangle the whole skein, it also does something far harder: make it seem sensible that a 13 year-old boy could get to the bottom of the mystery of a vanished panda ahead of the FBI. Gibbs’ keen eye for telling details, his ability to juggle both comedy and threat, his handling of parallel plot strands, and the realistic beats of the world he creates in his books all compel him as an author of extraordinary talent. I rarely play favourites, but if you’re tempted to try only one book on this list — c’mon, surely my opinion on these matters counts for something — I’d probably suggest you make it this one. [My review]

This final pick could be almost any of the too-short Adventures on Trains series, but Murder on the Safari Star (2021), the third entry, was my first encounter with Leonard and Sedgman’s world, and so I retain a slight fondness for it over the others. That it’s an impossible shooting doesn’t hurt, and that the answers are so cleverly achieved is an added bonus, but, really, if you’ve not read these books then start with The Highland Falcon Thief (2020) and watch it develop as you go. Like Stuart Gibbs, these two have crafted an exceptionally clear world with a very keen eye for social and moral responsibility, and they’ve wrapped it up in a superb murder mystery, to boot, so what’s not to love? [My review]