"What was that? Mrs. Merkel, are you okay? Mrs. Merkel, speak to me.” Those are some of the lines from Nobody’s There, a mystery by Joan Lowery Nixon.

     Nobody’s There occurs in present day, in the town of Buckler, Texas. Buckler is a large town, like any large town or city. A university is located there. There are shopping centers, coffee shops, libraries, etc.,  Lots of senior citizens live there and are involved in many activities. There are some strange things happening in Buckler. Mr. Thompson leaves his family for a younger woman. Abbie, his daughter, gets thrown in jail. Mrs. Merkel poses as a private eye. Scary things happen in Buckler, too. The bank president is murdered. Abbie and Mrs. Merkel are almost run over by an unidentified driver.  Mrs. Merkel is in a coma after someone tries to kill her. Buckler  may have some strange and mysterious events happening, and Abbie Thompson is the person who may figure out why.

     Abbie is a seventeen year old high school student. She has dirty-blonde hair and freckles. Abbie is unhappy. Her parents are getting a divorce and she is really sad about it. She is miserable about getting stuck helping out crabby Mrs. Merkel. She ends up being worried for the old lady when Mrs. Merkel gets hurt. Abbie is a kind person. She helps out a lot at home after her  parents get a divorce. She thinks of ways to make her brother, Davy, happy after the divorce. She also is kind to Mrs. Merkel after she gets hurt. Abbie turns out to be quite adventurous. She gets in trouble after throwing rocks through her dad’s girlfriend's window. Once she gets hooked up with Mrs. Merkel, she wants to get involved in the murder case. Unhappy, kind, and adventurous Abbie begins to solve the mystery in Nobody’s There.

     In Nobody’s There, Abbie’s main struggle is against Mrs. Merkel. Mrs. Merkel, crabby, old lady, forces Abbie, the unhappy but kind teenager, to help her solve the town’s murder mystery, along with some scams. Along the way, they solve the scam of two roofers. They also solve the case of a man selling cell phone numbers. They are following a mysterious blond woman, before Mrs. Merkel gets hurt. Who can she be?  

     After spending time with Mrs. Merkel and after the woman is hurt during their adventures, Abbie sees the woman is not so bad after all. Abbie also discovers she is not a “nobody” but someone with a life of her own. She now can deal better with her problems.

    I enjoyed reading Nobody’s There by Joan Lowery Nixon. It is a good mystery by a well-known mystery writer. Mrs. Nixon made the story exciting ,using excellent details. She also helped the main character, Abbie, learn how important a person she really is. I have only read a couple of mysteries, but Nobody’s There kept me guessing who the murderer was, just as Ellen Raskin did in The Westing Game. Nobody’s There would be excellent reading for mystery lovers in middle school and high school. If you like to solve mysteries, you will like Nobody’s There. It is so exciting from start to finish. See if you can figure out “whodunit.”