In this second offering in the Minerva Clark series Minerva is asked by a friend to help her retrieve an expensive red diamond the friend mistakenly sold to a stranger in the airport. The friend quickly loses interest in the quest once it becomes clear that her father is going to seek reimbursement from his insurance carrier. Minerva is left to pursue the location of the diamond on her own.

Unfortunately, “Minerva Clark Goes to the Dogs” suffers from lazy plotting. This is apparent both in the immoral behaviors it glosses over without comment and in the lack of interesting plot movement.

In a book intended for young adults the tacit approval of immoral behavior without comment is distressing. The father placed a diamond worth over a million dollars in a piece of costume jewelry and asked his daughter to wear it when returning to the United States. His intent was to smuggle it into the U. S. without declaring it and paying the required tariff. His plan to seek reimbursement from his insurance carrier most likely involves fraud; it is unlikely he plans to tell the insurance investigator that he was attempting to smuggle the ring into the country. At no point does Karbo explain to the intended audience that this behavior is unethical and illegal.

The daughter foolishly sold the ring for $50, yet the story depicts the young woman who bought the ring as the villain. Indeed, purchaser did take advantage of a ditzy young girl. While that act can be interpreted as unethical and immoral, it is not a crime. Nevertheless, Minerva’s attempt to recover the ring is portrayed as heroic and the young woman is portrayed as a sketchy character.

Later Minerva is kidnapped, an unambiguously unlawful act. What happens? The 9-1-1 operator refuses to forward Minerva’s complaint to the police. Minerva escapes by blowing the door off the room in which she was confined, damaging a public facility (or privately owned building; the ownership is not clear).

All of these morally questionable and ambiguous behaviors could have been avoided if Karbo had given more thought to plot development.

The plot itself is somewhat flat; nothing much happens that is of interest. Even Minerva’s kidnapping is surprisingly uninteresting. Karbo fails to create a plausible sense that Minerva is in danger so the episode fails to create any tension and the episode is only slightly interesting at best. The most engaging aspect is the depiction of Minerva’s adolescent thought processes, but Minerva’s charm alone is not sufficient to sustain the story.

I fear that my rating of this book is too generous because of my affection for Minerva as a character. Here’s hoping Karbo works a bit harder to come up with stronger, more ethically supportable story lines in future offerings. ( )

I got this book was I was little from Scholastic book magazine. I had no idea this was the second book. I have to read the first book. This book was so good. ( )