The Book Nook: The Tom and Liz Austen Mysteries Series by Eric Wilson

 Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Mine was pretty good. Welcome to another edition of The Book Nook. Today I'm going to be talking about a pretty obscure Canadian book series called The Tom and Liz Austen Mysteries by author Eric Wilson. I've never talked about these books on any of my blogs before, not even the original Review Basement blog on Word Press. So I thought now would be the perfect time to talk about them. Let's get into it.

The first book in the series, Murder on the Canadian, was originally published in 1976, though it's also been republished a few times over the years. The Tom and Liz Austen Mysteries is about a brother and sister detective duo, who solve mysteries in major Canadian settings. Occasionally they'd work together on a case, though most of the time, the books would be labeled as a Tom Austen Mystery or a Liz Austen Mystery with each of them working a case on their own, or with their own best friend or whoever. And that's the entire premise of the series. It's kind of like the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series, but Canadian, and about a brother and a sister rather than two brothers or an only child. 

I discovered the series in grade 6, around the same time as I started reading the Star Wars novels published by Bantam Books, and around the time I was starting to read more Gordon Korman books, and series like Animorphs and Goosebumps. I've never owned any of these books, but I did borrow them from the school library every once in a while. Not as often as I borrowed Hardy Boys books, or Animorphs books, but they were certainly in my rotation of books to borrow from the library. The Greely Elementary School library also didn't have very many of them either, so I read the same five books in the series all the time. Now, I'm going to take a look at the books in the series that I did read.

The first book in the series I ever read was Spirit in the Rainforest, the 8th book in the series, which was published in 1985. It's the only book in the series that I read where Tom and Liz are together on a case. Because they're brother and sister, Tom and Liz appear from time to time in each other's books, but they usually only appeared long enough for the center character in the book, be it Tom or Liz, to tell their sibling about the case they're on and then to explain to them how they solved it at the end. Similar to how Sherlock Holmes would explain his methods to Watson at the end of a Conan Doyle novel, or to how Frank and Joe would explain how they solved a mystery to their friends and/or family at the end of a Hardy Boys book. The plot of this book is Tom and Liz are visiting the rainforests of British Columbia and they hear a girl cry out a warning. Because it's been over 20 years since I read these books, I don't remember very many details, so there's alot about this book in particular that I don't remember.

I would also like to take this moment to pause so I can say something. Like I said at the beginning of this post, this is a pretty obscure series and so there's very little information online. Wikipedia has a book list on it's bio page for Eric Wilson, but there aren't any synopses for any of the books and the books themselves don't have their own Wikipedia pages. So the only place I could find synopses for the books that I read was on Eric Wilson's official website and they're extremely brief. It's the best I can do though. For the rest of these books I'm going to go in publication order, simply because I don't remember in which order I read them in.

 I think I actually read book 3, Terror in Winnipeg, which was published in 1979, next. In fact I'm pretty sure this was the next one I read after Spirit in the Rainforest. What's interesting is that the original cover, which you can see above, says that it's a Tom Austen Mystery, and the description on Eric Wilson's website confirms that, but the cover shown on the website, which is the one used for the most recent printings of the book, say that it's a Tom AND Liz Austen Mystery. Anyway the website simply states that Tom goes up against someone whose identity comes as a terrible shock. The story takes place in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but those are the only clues you get as to what the book is about. I remember liking this one, though not nearly as much as the other four that I read in the series.

Next is book 4, The Lost Treasure of Casa Loma and it was originally published in 1980. Judging from the description on the website, and the cover used for the more recent printings of the book, this was actually a Tom and Liz Austen Mystery even though the original cover says that it's just a Tom Austen Mystery. I suspect that many of these books were actually Tom and Liz Austen centered books, but the original publisher just labeled them as Tom Austen Mysteries for a large chunk of them to attract more male readers, which is stupid but it's the late '70s and early '80s. Anyway the book takes place in Toronto and Niagara Falls (Canadian side), so that's cool.

Next was book 8, Vampires of Ottawa, published in 1984. This was a Liz Austen Mystery and it was cool because I was born and raised in Ottawa and have lived here my whole life, so there were some landmarks that, despite this having been published two years before I was born, I recognized in this book from having seen them growing up. Having not read this book in over 20 years though, I couldn't tell you which landmarks they are, but maybe someday I'll find copies of the series and read all 20 books.

The last Tom and Liz Austen Mystery I read was book 14, The Prairie Dog Conspiracy, which was published in 1993, and the library had the hardcover edition. This book takes place in Tom Austen's hometown, Winnipeg, similar to book 3. However, I think this book is a prequel to the rest of the series, because Liz is hardly in it, and Tom isn't a detective yet. I'm pretty sure that's why this was my favourite of the books I read in the series. I don't remember for sure. I do remember borrowing it for three weeks in a row because nobody else was borrowing them. My classmates had moved on to things like Animorphs and Goosebumps and other books of that nature. And I just reread it over and over again. Again the Eric Wilson website gives a pretty poor summary of what the book is.

And that my friends is my look back at The Tom and Liz Austen Mysteries by Eric Wilson. They were only in my life for a short period of time, because I didn't own any of them, but I loved them as much as I loved The Hardy Boys. Like I said, I'm hoping to get at least a few of these books one of these days. They were a great series to read and it's a shame that these books don't get as much recognition as they deserve. Maybe when I do get my own copies of them, the ones I read when I was a kid at least, I'll do full reviews on them.

That's going to be it for me for today but I will be back tomorrow with my look at the magazines of Star Wars. I've also got the season 3 premiere of The Orville dropping this Thursday so keep an eye out for that review. There's also a fun episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds airing/dropping on Thursday as well. I've seen the trailer and promo images for it and I am really excited for this one. So until then have a wonderful rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.