Face-Lift 1441

Guess the Plot

The Disappearance of Anne Curtis

1. When reporter Anne Curtis discovers there's a parallel world where robots do all the real work and people do whatever they want, she must decide whether to reveal her findings to the scientific community . . . or just move to the parallel world. 

2. Anne Curtis disappeared a year ago, and the police have given up on finding her, so now it's up to Hal, who just opened his detective agency. Trouble is, it's hard to get the cops to hand over the case file when you're only twelve years old. 

3. When magician Lou Hendrix opened the cubicle, his assistant, Anne Curtis was no longer inside. The audience erupted in applause. When Lou closes and reopens the cubicle, it's still empty. And Lou is as surprised as anyone. 

4. CCTV footage shows Anne Curtis boarding a bus at 7th and High. But she never reaches her destination and there's no footage of her leaving the bus. Can detective sergeant Patrick Hathaway solve the disappearance of Anne Curtis before she misses her best friend's wedding? 

5. Anne Curtis knew it was a mistake to attend her high school reunion, but she did, and now she's shackled to the wall in the dungeon underneath the chem lab. In retrospect, the reunion theme--Let's Get Revenge on Anne Curtis--should have been a dead giveaway. 

6. She's gone, she's gone. I better learn how to face it. She's gone, she's gone. I'd pay the devil to replace . . . my sweet Anne Curtis.

Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Ever since [?-year-old] Hal found out his father, who died before Hal was born, was a detective, Hal has wanted nothing more than to be one too. [At least his dad wasn't an ice road trucker.] [If it was Mom who blabbed, she probably now wishes she'd told Hal his father was an editor.] So he reads tons of mystery books [Wouldn't he learn more reading Detective Work for Dummies than novels starring Hercule Poirot and Nero Wolfe?] and opens his own detective agency. The only thing he needs is someone to hire him to work on a case.

 

While at the beach posting fliers 

with his partner, Shoshanna Tucker, Hal meets Mr. Curtis, who’s handing out MISSING posters. Anne Curtis, Hal’s former classmate, is believed to have drowned in the Great South Bay a year ago, at least that’s what Hal heard. Mr. Curtis tells them Anne suffered from somnambulism, and the police think she sleepwalked to the marina and took out their rowboat in the middle of the night. [An interesting twist. Normally, the police would accuse Curtis of killing Anne and burying her body in a shallow grave in the woods, or dismembering her and feeding her to the sharks in the bay, and at his trial Curtis would attempt to create reasonable doubt by coming up with a preposterous alternative theory for his daughter's disappearance, namely she walked from her home to the marina where her family rowboat was stored, removed the rowboat's cover, untied the rowboat from its mooring, inserted the oars into the oarlocks, and rowed out to sea . . . all while sleeping. The jury would be out for about two minutes. But in your mystery, it's the police who come up with this fantastic theory, and the prosecutor who tries to sell it to a jury.] Though she was never seen again, Mr. Curtis still believes she’s [still] alive. 

 

Later, Hal finds a novel about missing girls Anne had given him shortly before she disappeared. Did she know something bad was going to happen to her? [Yes. Just as, if an albino tried to kill Anne, the classmate to whom she'd given a copy of The da Vinci Code would be wondering if she'd foreseen the attack.] In addition, he suddenly remembers the nasty things kids said about Anne in school. Was she bullied? Hal, currently having his own problems with a bully, decides to investigate. [This bullying issue doesn't feel relevant enough for the query. Sure, maybe a bully kidnapped Anne while she was sleepwalking, set the rowboat adrift as a red herring for the police, and has had Anne chained in his parents' basement for a year, torturing her every day after school, but for now we should just stick with the actual evidence Hal gathers. You could replace this entire paragraph with: Hal offers to investigate Anne's disappearance, and Mr. Curtis hires him on the spot.]

 

While visiting Anne’s house, he makes a promise to Anne’s little sister, Maggie, that he’ll try and find Anne. But the more he examines the case, the more it looks as if Anne drowned, as everyone says. [I suspect that if you're sleeprowing, and fall out of your rowboat, you'd wake up immediately and could grab onto the boat or swim to shore. However, I can find nothing on Wikipedia to support this theory.] Finally, he finds new evidence that suggests Anne might not have been sleepwalking that night. But is it enough to lead to the truth? 

Then Maggie begins sleepwalking. Will she go missing next? [Probably not, as by now the Curtises surely have installed padlocks on the doors and bars on the windows.] Hal begins to wonder what he’s gotten himself into and if he’s really a detective after all.

 

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ANNE CURTIS, a 49,000-word middle grade mystery, is available upon request. This is my first novel.

 

 Thank you for your consideration,

Notes

Near the end of the Wikipedia article on sleepwalking are several examples of people who used sleepwalking as their defense when charged with murder. Several of them got off. One who didn't get off was convicted because the jury felt the crime was too complex to have been committed while asleep. Which is why I believe this Curtis dude is gonna get life without parole.

No need to even mention Shoshanna Tucker if she plays no role in the query.

I don't see how Hal can examine the case or find new evidence. What evidence convinces him, at first, that Anne drowned? How is he getting new evidence? (Where's he going? Who's he questioning?) Convince us that he has some skills as a detective.

This book would sell better if the title character had a more interesting name. Take a lesson from Charles Dickens, whose titles included such names as Martin Chuzzlewit, Edwin Drood, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Barnaby Rudge . . .  I suggest The Disappearance of Jamie Lee Curtis.