“Miss Daisy Tannenbaum, almost thirteen, and homeschooling in Paris with her Aunt Millicent, takes a break from the City of Light and her dreaded math homework, and heads to a rambling chateau in the Loire Valley to help her Aunt Mill’s friend, former-spy Felix, catalog his art collection. But when Daisy receives a copy of the Mona Lisa as a thank you, strange things start to happen. This Mona is not just any copy, it’s one of two perfect forgeries created to fool the Nazis during their hunt for the real Mona Lisa during WWII. Daisy’s best friend from the states, Lucia, a newly minted teen model, and in Paris to audition for the spring runway shows, thinks Daisy’s Mona is the real one. Real or not, it’s worth a fortune, and when Felix suddenly dies, his family accuses Daisy of stealing it. Our plucky heroine must navigate a world of crazy, scheming, often criminal adults, not to mention traveling ghosts, ginormous pigs, testy lawyers, former spies, and obnoxious fashionistas, as she finds herself in a harrowing chase in and around Paris while trying to outwit them all to keep her beloved Mona.”

Daisy and the Missing Mona Lisa (Amazon) is the third installment of the Daisy Tannenbaum middle grade mysteries. You don’t necessarily have to have read the previous books in the series in order to read this, but there were a few curious references to Daisy killing a shark that makes me want to go back and check them out.

Okay, here’s the thing, and I’ve mentioned it before. I do not like when books have other languages in them and don’t translate. The good news is that, being in France, there’s a lot of French but Daisy translates it, but the bad part is that there’s so much of it in the beginning of the book that it was hard to get into at first. Once there’s not constant explanations, the story picks up.

I do have to say that Daisy is a rather resourceful 12-year-old who has a lot of freedom to go places and do things that I don’t think I’d give my 12-year-old while in Paris. But in that way, she reminds me a bit of Nancy Drew, who undoubtedly inspired the author, whether they knew it or not. The parental authority in Paris, Aunt Mill, is mostly absent.

Daisy is clever and resourceful and just like in Nancy Drew books, a lot of information is revealed as a way to inform readers, like about all the art the Nazis looted during World War II and the effort French art historians went to hide the Mona Lisa from Hitler and his gang. Learning about the French Resistance is a bonus that children might not realize they’re getting a history lesson. That’s always a bonus for me when I read children’s books; sneaking in real facts makes me like the book more.

Overall, this book reminds me of a children’s version of a Dan Brown book, full of action and running and chasing and thefts and danger. What kid wouldn’t love a book like that? Now I’m going to have to go back and read the first two books and find out where the shark killing comes in.

I received an eARC of this book from the author, Sumus Press, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

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