Young Adult Detective Bookfilter
February 13, 2014 10:09 PM   Subscribe

Need help identifying a book from childhood.

My wife and I are compiling a list of all the books we enjoyed as children so we can pick up copies when we see them in used book stores. The ultimate goal being to have the books we liked for our daughter to read.

We were discussing the pre-teen/teen detective genre, and I had a vague recollection of a book I liked, but couldn't remember the title. Here's what I remember:

1. The main character was a teenage boy that was living with relatives for the summer, or at least non-permanently.

2. It was sort of Encyclopedia Brown-ish in the sense that he sets up a business in the barn solving problems. I distinctly remember his sign advertising "Pure and Applied Science". I don't recall any real crime stories, mostly people hiring the kid to find missing items or something similar and him using general scientific knowledge to solve the problem.

3. There was one story where the main character gets a bloody nose and lies down outside to wait for it to stop and is mistaken for a dead body.

4. It seemed like it was either written or set in the 50s or 60s.

5. It's not Encyclopedia Brown, the Great Brain, the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew. I think there was more than one book featuring the same characters, but only maybe two or three.

Any ideas?
posted by Ham Snadwich to Writing & Language (11 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Could it had been the Mad Scientists' Club? (Sciencey, retro, business in a barn/garage?)
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:17 PM on February 13, 2014 [2 favorites]


Some of this, particularly the science aspect, sounds like the Danny Dunn series. The barn and the bloody nose don't sound familiar though.
posted by madmethods at 10:24 PM on February 13, 2014


Response by poster: Danny Dunn sounds familiar, but from looking at the book titles it seems a little too scifi. I don't recall this book having any sci fi elements. The Mad Scientist Club doesn't sound right either.
posted by Ham Snadwich at 10:34 PM on February 13, 2014


Best answer: The Henry Reed series?
posted by superlibby at 11:02 PM on February 13, 2014 [2 favorites]


Googling "Henry Reed"+"Bloody nose" leads to this Amazon comment, which suggests superlibby has it!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:20 PM on February 13, 2014


Alvin Fernald series by Clifford Hicks?
posted by Rob Rockets at 1:03 AM on February 14, 2014


What about The Three Investigators?
posted by gregvr at 2:31 AM on February 14, 2014


Yes, superlibby must be right. See the article: Pure and Applied Research about Henry Reed
posted by nightwood at 4:25 AM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Yes! Henry Reed. That's definitely it. Thanks everyone.
posted by Ham Snadwich at 4:40 AM on February 14, 2014


Interesting how Henry Reed was also the answer just just a couple weeks ago.
posted by Rash at 9:03 AM on February 14, 2014


Response by poster: Weird. It looks like our remembered details were just different enough so that the pre-submission googling wasn't effective.
posted by Ham Snadwich at 10:42 AM on February 14, 2014


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