Eleven year olds Alex Parakeet and his next door neighbour Yasmeen Popp are best friends and they make up the Chickadee Court Detective Agency.

Their services are called for when Alex’s dad finds his grandma’s pumpkin pie recipe has gone missing. It isn’t just any pumpkin pie recipe, it is called Grandma’s Million Dollar Pumpkin Pie recipe and Alex’s dad is to prepare it on live TV. The seriousness is without the recipe Alex’s dad doesn’t remember the secret ingredient that makes it so special.

There is a long list of suspects for the kids to investigate. Being they are neighbours and friends doesn’t make it any easier. Especially when the majority would love to take Alex’s dad’s place and make their own specialties while on live TV.

The action moves and the book is a fun read for kids and adults. And yes, the recipe is in the book to try making it yourself. ( )

Over all, it was a pretty good read. If you've read the other "Who Stole...." book, then you know what to expect.

Alex and Yesmeen had to figure out to who stole the recipe for Grandma's million dollar pumpkin pie. The list of suspect is sort of long, but to make things so much worse, it's stolen when Alex's family and friends is over for Thanksgiving dinner, so that means Alex and his family know the bad guy. What makes things even worse is that Alex's dad needs that recipe so he can go on a famous TV cooking show to show how to make the pie. If he can't have the recipe, then he can't go on. Is the thief take the recipe to keep Alex's dad from doing the show, or are there other reasons behind the act? You'll have to read it to find out.

The book has many funny parts. At times, I chuckled out loud. I also liked the characters, they all seem life like, as in the other Who Stole... books. Alex and Yesmeen are great characters and play well off each other. Alex is a hoot. The story had a good flow to it.

There are some parts that I didn't like. Most of them had to do with parts that just were there to be there, and didn't add anything to the story. Some parts that come to mind are the two descriptions of a football game that goes it. I do sort of understand why they were there, but they didn't need to be so long, or to have two of them. The Thanksgiving dinner scene seems to be going for a bit to long. Again, I know what it was there, but it just went on for such a long time.

In the middle, the mystery seemed to be forgotton. Nobody was working on the case, and it just seemed to go on for such a long time. Things happened that did nothing for the plot. As a matter of fact, it seemed to slow the plot down.

Over all, I say go ahead and read it. It was enjoyable. This is a great way to get kids hooked on mysteries. I plan to tell my students about it. For me, 3 stars isn't that bad. :O) ( )