The Mystery Of The Stolen Bicycle: A Sam Watkins Mystery (The Sam Watkins Mysteries)

There was always a mystique about bicycle ownership when I was a kid. Part of it was the play that we did on bikes, but another piece was the freedom that a bicycle conferred. Suddenly, the baseball field eight blocks from home wasn't too far away. The same could be said for the market, the tennis courts, and even the skateboard park over two miles from the house. But not all was fun. From the time that I was in the third grade, it was expected that I would ride the mile to school nearly every day. Having a bicycle meant employment too. No longer was I limited to pushing my dad's lawn mower around the neighborhood looking to cut grass. I began delivering newspapers when I was in the sixth grade. Unfortunately, a good bicycle is automatically a target for thieves. My bike was stolen when I was about twelve years old. I'd ridden with some friends to the neighborhood market, probably to buy candy. When we came out, my bike was gone and I was shattered. I reported it to the police, and surprisingly, they found it several days later in the creek that wound through town. It was muddy, and pretty well banged up, and never really rode the same again, but I learned from that. Always lock up the bike, and never ride anything showy. Though I owned several more bikes as a kid, none was stolen. I attributed that to a good lock and an ugly bike that I generally built myself from scavenged parts. Most ran very well, and one could have been used for racing competition, but each looked like it was about to fall apart.Sam Watkins is a sixth grade detective, complete with business cards and attitude. He and his two friends, Tomas and Pauli are in the business of solving mysteries. The loss of a bicycle, or in my previous book, a baseball bat, is mostly annoying to an adult. To a child in elementary school, it's life changing. They've lost something cherished. Baseball is less fun without your own bat. Mobility all of a sudden shrinks without a bike. Even more important than that, is their loss of trust in their fellow students. Sam's job is to identify and track down the thieves and return the stolen goods to their rightful owners.In the Mystery of the Missing Bicycle, Sam is hired by Bobby Matthews to find his bicycle. He'd come to school in the morning and parked his bike in the bike cage. When he went out to go home that afternoon, the bike was gone. Fortunately, Sam heard about the incident and volunteered to help.

• | Author: Stephen T. Gilbert
• | Publisher: Independently Published
• | Publication Date: Oct 02, 2019
• | Number of Pages: 100 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 1081890177
• | ISBN-13: 9781081890179