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The first two books in a presumably ongoing series about Iris Anderson, a teenaged German-Jew living in New York in 1942. Her father, a private detective, lost a leg in Pearl Harbor, and much of the conflict revolves around Iris wanting to help in his investigations.
I actually read the second book The Girl is Trouble first, not realizing until after I'd started there there was a book before it, and wasn't able to read The Girl is Murder for about a month. I saw that The Girl is Trouble was about a teen detective in the 40s who begins to suspect that her mother's suicide was actually a murder and looked no further than that and the title. While there are references to the first book, I had no problems or confusion reading them out of order, despite there being a close continuity between the books.
The books seem to be inevitably compared to Nancy Drew, which is pretty fair, but she feels more like "40s Veronica Mars" to me. (Of course, Veronica Mars owes a fair bit to Nancy Drew, and other female detectives, which really makes it a quibble at best.) The titles seem to be attached to the wrong books to me. The Girl is Murder doesn't contain any murders (though Iris spends a chunk of the book suspecting there has been one) and instead focuses on Iris involving herself in a missing person's case while adjusting from going from being a rich private school girl to being a public school girl whose father can barely make ends meet, as well as her making friends with the girls at her new school and trying to create an identity for herself in her new life, while the main plot of the second revolves around Iris investigating her mother's death and learning about her mother's secret life (there's a betaplot in which Iris investigates malicious letters being left in the lockers of Jewish students).
There's considerable focus on prejudice against both Germans and Jews at the time (as well as other groups, but primarily the two that affect Iris the most) particularly in the second book, and it does a good job of depicting the general "homefront" mindset. Iris has a nominal love interest, but the books have little time for that with everything else that's going on. Solid books, and definitely recommended if you want something a little different from the average YA fare.
I actually read the second book The Girl is Trouble first, not realizing until after I'd started there there was a book before it, and wasn't able to read The Girl is Murder for about a month. I saw that The Girl is Trouble was about a teen detective in the 40s who begins to suspect that her mother's suicide was actually a murder and looked no further than that and the title. While there are references to the first book, I had no problems or confusion reading them out of order, despite there being a close continuity between the books.
The books seem to be inevitably compared to Nancy Drew, which is pretty fair, but she feels more like "40s Veronica Mars" to me. (Of course, Veronica Mars owes a fair bit to Nancy Drew, and other female detectives, which really makes it a quibble at best.) The titles seem to be attached to the wrong books to me. The Girl is Murder doesn't contain any murders (though Iris spends a chunk of the book suspecting there has been one) and instead focuses on Iris involving herself in a missing person's case while adjusting from going from being a rich private school girl to being a public school girl whose father can barely make ends meet, as well as her making friends with the girls at her new school and trying to create an identity for herself in her new life, while the main plot of the second revolves around Iris investigating her mother's death and learning about her mother's secret life (there's a betaplot in which Iris investigates malicious letters being left in the lockers of Jewish students).
There's considerable focus on prejudice against both Germans and Jews at the time (as well as other groups, but primarily the two that affect Iris the most) particularly in the second book, and it does a good job of depicting the general "homefront" mindset. Iris has a nominal love interest, but the books have little time for that with everything else that's going on. Solid books, and definitely recommended if you want something a little different from the average YA fare.