Scooby Doo, Nancy Drew, and Someone New

Who was your favorite young detective, when you were growing up? Many people will name perennial favorites Nancy Drew or Frank and Joe Hardy; some started younger, preferring the brainteasers they solved right along with Encyclopedia Brown. Saturday-morning cartoon fans may immediately think of Scooby Doo and the gang, while younger generations may be more inclined to Theodore Boone or Enola Holmes. Personally, my favorites were The Three Investigators; I loved riding along with Jupe, Pete and Bob on their Scooby Doo-style adventures, debunking apparent supernatural phenomena with daring and logic.

In general, these young detectives fit a mold: Old enough to be able to move around somewhat independently, but too young to drive a car. Their parents are generally absent, having either died untimely or dedicated themselves to demanding careers. They’re proficient library users, keen observers and have terrific hearing. But they tend to have one shortcoming: they’ve been around awhile. Every single one of these old favorites predates cell phones, iPads, and the internet.

Enter: Chynna Boswell. In many ways, Chynna fits the old-school teen detective mold: her parents both have demanding careers, so Chynna spends summers and even school semesters living with relatives while her dad and mom both travel for work. Chynna has solved four books’ worth of mysteries at this point, and not until book four do we see her solving one close to home. She unmasks supernatural phenomena, identifies killers who thought they’d committed the perfect crime, and braves wild weather to save her friends. But unlike all of the perennial favorites mentioned above, this girl detective is thoroughly modern. She lives in the here and now, complete with iPad, cell phone, and laptop (for school, of course).

On top of that, there’s something else unique about Chynna, in a genre crowded with precocious private eyes: Chynna doesn’t do legwork.

She can’t, because Chynna Boswell uses a wheelchair.

Author Sandy Clark Boone modeled her spirited girl detective on real life: her granddaughter is a wheelchair user. Boone, who cites Trixie Belden as her favorite teen detective influence, wrote the series both as a way of drawing her granddaughter into a beloved genre, and as a way of drawing able-bodied youngsters into the world of someone like them—but with a disability.

People with disabilities are the largest minority group in the United States—there are 50 million of them—but they are vastly underrepresented in public spaces, including the workplace, government, and the media. But not in Chynna’s world: not only is Chynna herself disabled, but so are many of the people she encounters. Chynna builds relationships and solves mysteries not just with the people around her who are able-bodied and neurotypical, but also with people who have both physical and intellectual disabilities.

Like most teen detectives—in fact, like most series detectives—Chynna doesn’t need to go looking for mysteries. They just seem to find her. In the newly-released fourth instalment, Chynna and the FBI, Chynna is inadvertently drawn into an FBI investigation when an important thumb drive goes astray. Following the mystery, Chynna befriends Chase, the awkward new boy in her summer school class, and the fashionable Sissy McCormick. Too late, she realizes that her new friendships could put her—and her family—in deadly peril.

If you know a fan of teen detective novels—especially one who has hit the age when it seems like they’re going through a book a day, and you can’t keep them in books—check out the Chynna Boswell mysteries. Available today in eBook or paperback.