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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSTwelve-year-old Alex Sherlock runs a three-member mystery club at his middle school with his best friend Yadi and his new friend Lina, and yes, they really did borrow the motto from Sherlock Holmes even though nobody else at Carver Middle has ever heard of them. When Alex's older sister Zoe gets stuck in one of the club's escape-room games and ends up loving it, she talks the other three into turning their club into a real detective agency for the summer. Their grandfather Pete signs on as the driver, cruising them around Miami in his vintage Cadillac and teaching them the reporting tricks he picked up over four decades at the Miami Herald. Their mother, a lawyer, shuts the business down almost immediately, so Grandpa opens his storage unit full of old unsolved newspaper stories instead, and the group picks the biggest one he's got: a rumor that Al Capone buried a million dollars somewhere in South Florida that was never found. Tracking down clues about the missing money leads them deep into the Everglades, where they stumble onto a slough full of dead wildlife and a pile of illegally dumped chemical waste, and following that new mystery out of the swamp connects them to one of the most powerful men in the region. Alex and his friends have to use everything Grandpa taught them about asking questions and reading people to figure out exactly what that man is hiding.
Free Battle of the Books questions for The Sherlock Society
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about The Sherlock Society. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book does a grandfather warn that Miami is "a sunny place filled with shady people"?
✓ Answer
The Sherlock Society by James Ponti
Pete Lassiter spent forty six years as a Miami Herald reporter and turns his convertible into a rolling classroom about the city. That line becomes the group's rule of thumb every time somebody seems a little too friendly.
- First half
In what book does a folded treasure map slip out of the spine of a botany book?
✓ Answer
The Sherlock Society by James Ponti
Lina remembers the escape room trick of loosening a book's spine and tries it on the old plant encyclopedia Al Capone gave to his gardener. A map drawn on onionskin paper drops onto Ms. Jackson's dining room table.
- First half
In what book does a mural's anniversary sign prove a treasure map cannot point there?
✓ Answer
The Sherlock Society by James Ponti
Everyone is ready to grab shovels at the abandoned zoo until Lina points at painted words celebrating a seventy fifth jubilee. The zoo was not built until 1948, seventeen years after the money was hidden, and Zoe is crushed because keeping the timeline straight was her job.
- Second half
In what book is a boy recognized as the kid hanging upside down in a pizza commercial?
✓ Answer
The Sherlock Society by James Ponti
Yadi's one acting job, a Pizza Impossible ad, keeps following him around, and this time it cracks the case open. Bailey loves that commercial so much that he agrees to be interviewed and hands over his surveillance footage.
- Second half
In what book does a grower bring in a thousand barn owls to handle pests?
✓ Answer
The Sherlock Society by James Ponti
Morris Kane shows off his modernization plan, which includes drones, GPS guided tractors, and birds instead of chemical pesticides. He sounds so committed to the environment that the kids start doubting he could be the culprit.
- Near the end
In what book do a brother and sister hide in a boat's shower and hug in the dark?
✓ Answer
The Sherlock Society by James Ponti
Trapped when the engines start, Alex and Zoe squeeze into the one place the men on board will not need. Zoe wraps her arms around Alex because she is terrified, and he hugs her back.
