Publisher's Synopsis
Ellie Adder, private investigator, and her associate Carolyn, return with five new stories. Three of the stories are linked and they introduce Count Francisco Sánchez-Navarro, who is the scion of an old Spanish family with a long history in Mexico and Texas. He is an adventurer and a rogue. He always asks both friends and foes to call him Don Cisco. We first meet Don Cisco in The Case of the Gunrunners. During the Christmas holidays in 1937, Ellie and Carolyn become involved in the Spanish Civil War through a chase across Texas to catch some gunrunners. Don Cisco is encountered again in Down Mexico Way. In early summer 1938, Ellie and her Great Aunt Alice head to Mexico to stop a potential invasion north of the border by revolutionaries who are intent on reuniting Texas with Mexico. In A Halloween Mystery, Ellie and Carolyn are invited to a masquerade ball on Halloween. The party is at Don Cisco's ranch on the Texas-Mexico border. Amid the music, dancing, and fireworks, gunfire erupts, and the ball is interrupted. The final two stories are origin tales about Carolyn and Ellie's first cases. In Carolyn Solves a Mystery, a horse is stolen, and Carolyn tracks down the thief. The tale Ellie Adder and the School Bus recounts when Ellie faced her first trial against those who were up to no good.
