This second novel in the Penny Parker series is a fun followup to the TALE OF THE WITCH DOLL. Penny is juggling two mysteries in this one, getting herself in a couple of tight spots. With the help of her Dad, her best friend, Louise, and another great character called Mud-Cat Joe, she’s on another adventure to find three men who disappeared from a spooky bed and breakfast, and a missing houseboat belonging to Mud-Cat Joe.
Another very enjoyable YA mystery story by Mildred Wirt, penned in 1939.
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Easy to read story with a likable heroine told in plain uncluttered prose. ( )

So far as excitement goes, The Vanishing Houseboat is as good as the first book, Tale of the Witch Doll. Unfortunately, it's marred by its racist portrayal of the Chinese characters. (The frontispiece doesn't match the more offensive description in the text, at least.)

Penny and Louise are drawn into the mystery through yet another former student of Riverview High who's down on her luck. Laura Blair didn't study more practical subjects in school, such as typing, so she's working as a waitress. (Mr. Blair was a careless driver and managed to get himself and Mrs. Blair killed in an accident. Because he was at fault, there was no compensation for his daughter. Debts ate up the estate. I wonder if Laura's fate caused any readers to nag their dads to drive more carefully.)

Laura gets fired in the first chapter, thanks to a toxic boss whose manner only makes her more nervous and clumsy. Penny and Louise give her a lift to another town, White Falls, where a general housework job has been advertised. If Laura weren't so determined to be self-supporting, she'd have accepted Penny's offer of a home until she can find a better job. Mrs. Comstock of the tourist house called the Old Mansion is obviously another slave driver. Her husband is even less pleasant.

The Old Mansion has a cafe on one side and a Chinese laundry on the other. Penny learns a juicy bit of local gossip at the cafe -- a man who spent the night at the Old Mansion disappeared!

The houseboat in the title is the River Queen, home of the Gates family: Mud-Cat Joe, his wife, Jennie, and their children, Jed, Petey, and Susie. The Gates, their dog, goat, pigs, and chickens are sheltering in an old shed that doesn't even have a door. Someone stole the houseboat while they were doing some trading, leaving them only the raft where they kept their animals. The poor kids have only the clothes they were wearing.

The Gates may be poor and speak in dialect, but they're hardworking, good people. The old cow shed isn't much, but it's better than being out in a bad rainstorm, which is how the girls meet them. (Penny's Leaping Lena has died until her spark plugs dry.)

The girls make sure to buy some groceries and children's clothing to help out the Gates, not to mention keeping an eye out for their houseboat. Their kindness will be amply repaid before the mystery is over. (Although I did get annoyed with the author for claiming that Jennie displayed 'a surprising amount of common sense' in chapter 20. I would think that her life would have given her plenty of opportunity to develop good sense in caring for an injured person.)

The mystery thickens when a man seeking the fellow who disappeared also disappears from the Old Mansion's Room Number 7. A third disappearance happens during a party Penny, her father, and some of the 'Riverview Star' staff hold in the Old Mansion. There have been old stories about inns with rooms where guests disappear forever, thanks to the innkeepers. Are the Comstocks killers?

Poor Jerry Livingston, the reporter Penny thinks is handsome, manages to get a nasty injury courtesy of the villains. His repeated mutterings about flaming eyes are taken for nonsense, but we readers know better, don't we?

Once again Penny is in danger of a gruesome death. This time Louise is in danger, too.

There sure are a lot of rivers near Riverview. Besides the Big Bear River mentioned in chapter one of the first book, there are the Kobalt, Big Blue, and Snark rivers.

Spelling changes: In chapter 15, the old spelling of Halloween, 'Hallowe'en' is used. (A Canadian friend likes to tease me about the fact that his country kept that old spelling and mine didn't.)

If you can handle the racism, you should find the rest of the book a fast-paced adventure.

My copy is a later printing with the frontispiece on plain paper instead of glossy. I thought it was by K.S. Woerner because the style was similar to that of my copy of Tale of the Witch Doll, which has a glossy frontispiece. I couldn't find his name on it, though.

On 5/25/12 I checked the Project Gutenberg scan of Danger at the Drawbridge. Their scan is a later printing than my copy. Not only was the artist's name missing from their frontispiece, it appeared to be a rough copy with a couple of minor changes. My guess is that the frontispiece of my copy of The Vanishing Houseboat is a rougher copy of Woerner's glossy and that's why there's no name on it. ( )