Thirteen-year-old Sherlock Holmes aficionado Ingrid Levin-Hill tries to clear her grandfather's name when he is accused of murdering an environmental activist found dead on his farm.

13 year-old Ingrid is snowshoeing through the woods of Echo Falls with her boyfriend when they find the local conservation agent whose been missing. He'd been making problems for Ingrid's grandfather, and Grampy had threatened the agent, whose body is now lying on Grampy's land. Ingrid wants to prove her grandfather didn't murder the agent, but Grampy's lousy personality makes it difficult to believe he isn't involved.

This book does get into darker territory with a break in the family, tales of WWII survival, a serious injury for one character and a minor character late in the book who could have come out of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. This is the third, and I think, the last of the Echo Falls Mysteries so far. I hope Abrahams continues the series as I'm fond of Ingrid, the child with much too old taste in Basil Rathbone movies and Fresca. ( )

Good mystery, listen to this book as an audio book and it kept my interest. I liked Ingrid Levin-Hill as a character . Trouble with her parents, and Grandpa illness and secrets from WW2 make this book easy to listen to ( )

Ingrid Levin-Hill is back, and she's playing Gretel in the local theater's production of Hansel and Gretel. The play's not the only place where danger lurks in the woods, though. One of the more obnoxious local conservation agents is found murdered on Grampy's farm, and Grampy gets arrested and charged with the crime. Grampy absolutely refuses to give an alibi, and refuses to cooperate with the sheriff, so it's up to Ingrid to try to piece together where Grampy was, and what happened to the conservation agent before Grampy is forced to cut a deal or go to trial -- both of which would lead to prison for him. Ingrid discovers along the way that Grampy was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in World War II on the island of Corregidor, and that he was part of the Bataan Death March -- neither of which he is willing to talk about, but some of his old comrades fill in enough of the details for Ingrid. How could this courageous, honorable, stubborn old man be guilty of shooting an unarmed man in the back? Ingrid's determined to find out the truth, but it's more dangerous than she knows. Great mystery! Grade 6 and up. ( )

Into the Dark, by Peter Abrahams, is the third installment in his Echo Falls YA mystery series. This time, young Ingrid finds that she has landed the role of Gretel in the community theatre's upcoming production of "Hansel and Gretel." At the same time, she's hanging out more with Grampy, her (to put it mildly) crusty grandfather, and her friend Joey with whom she goes snow-shoeing and almost shares a kiss. Things at home are not going too well, what with Dad rushing off to the office at all hours, and Mom getting more and more frazzled. But when a body turns up murdered on Grampy's farm, and Grampy is arrested for the crime after refusing to provide an alibi, Ingrid must put all those other considerations aside in order to learn the identity of the true murderer before Grampy accepts a plea bargain and goes away to jail....This is an entertaining series set in upstate New York, with well-drawn characters; Abrahams does particularly well with getting into the mindset of a 13-year-old girl who is bright but somewhat insecure. As always with this series, I figured out the identity of the killer quite early on, but seeing how Abrahams got there was good fun. Recommended. ( )