by Bill Doyle
Two men walked quickly toward us, their eyes darting here and there. One was carrying a large camera and the other made notes on a pad of paper. Clearly, they were journalists.
“What will we call this disaster in the newspaper?” One of the men asked the other as they approached us.
Without thinking I said, “The Big One.”
Judge looked at me, surprised.
The journalist who had asked the question overheard me. I saw him write down what I had said.
“The Big One,” he repeated as he passed by us. “Yes, I think that will work.”
WARNING: This letter reveals the story’s ending!
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
SWINDLED! takes place in the past, but that doesn’t make it a history book. While I tried to be accurate when it came to the detective techniques of 1906, I wrote this book to be entertaining. So, when historical events weren’t what I needed them to be—prestol I changed them for the sake of the story.
Fitz, Judge, the train itself—all seem very real to me and, hopefully, to you. But they are inventions of my imagination. The book’s biggest example of “historical fiction” is the made-up cause of the USS MAINE’S destruction.
There’s no doubt that the MAINE sank in Cuba’s Havana harbor in 1898 and that this event sparked the Spanish-American War. Many historians say the most likely cause was a mine that bumped up against the MAINE and exploded—but, to this day, no one is completely sure what really happened.
I thought it would make the adventure more exciting if Fitz helped solve one of our country’s oldest mysteries—so I created the Calamity Crew.
I hope you had fun reading SWINDLED! Just don’t use Fitz’s journal as study material for your next history test!
Yours in time,
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bill Doyle was born in Lansing, Michigan, and wrote his first mystery when he was eight. He loved seeing the shock on people’s faces when they discovered the identity of the story’s villain–and knew then that he was hooked on writing. Bill has written for Sesame Workshop, LeapFrog, Scholastic, ROLLING STONE, TIME FOR KIDS, and the Museum of Natural History. He lives in New York City with a mysterious dachshund named Esme.
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Unravel the mystery with real historical crime-solving methods!
Welcome to the crime-solving world of the famous Fitzmorgan and Moorie detective families! Each of the books in the Crime Through Time series is hosted by a young sleuth who must work against all odds to unravel a compelling mystery. Every few pages, you can take a break from the suspense and learn about real-life investigative techniques so that you, too, can become a detective!
In Swindled!, Fitz is aboard a Continental Express train, bound from New York for San Francisco. As more and more people become ill from cyanide poisoning, Fitz and a new friend, Justine “Judge” Pinkerton (of the famous crime-solving Pinkerton family), begin to unravel a wickedly ingenious plot involving a ring of money counterfeiters.