The Sammy Keyes series is a mystery comedy series. It’s about Sammy, a teenage girl who is always somehow sidetracked and gets herself into a lot of unnecessary trouble by being an amateur “detective” and catching bad guys. Throughout the series, it talks about Sammy’s background, school life, ridiculous yet thrilling and fun adventures.
The Sammy Keyes novels are based in the fictional town of Santa Martina, which is located in California. Santa Martina is closely based on the real city of Santa Maria, California, down to the names of streets used throughout the series and well known landmarks.
Sammy Keyes is a teenage girl who lives with her grandmother in the Senior Highrise where lawfully, only senior citizens are allowed. Her mother went to Hollywood to pursue her dream as an actress when Sammy was in elementary school, so she left Sammy with her grandmother. Because Sammy was living illegally, she had to sneak up and down the fire escape doors everyday to and from school. But the fire escape doors are usually latched, so she stuck a piece of bubble gum on the door to prevent it from being latched. Sammy needs to hide in her grandmother’s room whenever someone rings the doorbell. All her clothes and other things need to fit in her grandmother’s closet’s bottom drawer. And she can only sleep on the couch. So no one would be suspicious about her living there. Sammy didn’t know who her father was until later in the series because she was raised by only her mother and grandmother. Sammy is very loyal to her friends and yet always gets them into life-threatening situations. She is very smart but always gets sidetracked. She love solving crimes and catching bad guys.
Each book has a theme, such as; chemistry, art, church, gangs, Halloween, Las Vegas, graveyards, etc. There are 18 books in the series, and each book is a new mystery.
I highly recommend reading this series for both pleasure and class assignments. The series is thrilling, hilarious, heartwarming, educational, and insanely addictive. The final book ties everything together in a twist. In every book in the series it’s about Sammy finding out who did the crime, and in the final book, it’s Sammy’s family and friends trying to solve this mystery. The final book is bitter-sweet because after reading the series, it genuinely feels like you know Sammy as a real person, and it feels like you have been through all the ups and downs and adventures with her. Therefore, it is really difficult to say goodbye and watch this series come to an end after all these years. However, every end is a new beginning; don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.
