Panic in Puerto Vallarta and Chaos in Cancun are the first and second of a planned six-book series featuring plucky 14-year-old K.C. Flanagan, girl detective. Each mystery will take place in an exotic tropical locale. Despite K.C.’s unfortunate tendency to sound like a ponderous English teacher, she emerges as a pleasant series heroine.

Most of the good and bad guys are recognizable stock series characters: K.C. and her cute, smart, and athletic older brother, Rudy, live with their handsome, sensitive, divorced lawyer father. Her parents are “pretty cool people” who get along beautifully despite their divorce. Refreshingly, none of the parents or their significant others are drawn with clichéd, shrewish lines, and not once in the two books does our heroine resort to moaning about her dreadful hair or impossible looks. K.C. likes herself, which makes her pretty likable.

K.C. and her family go to Puerto Vallarta because her father works for an international construction firm. She soon spies some unsettling goings on from her hotel balcony and ends up witnessing a murder. Of course no one believes her until she’s up to her curious eyeballs in corrupt government officials, shady lawyers, and murderous drug dealers. Brimming with travelogue details, the story would have benefited from a closer copy edit and fact-checking.

When the family goes to Cancun in the second installment, K.C. again spies potentially nefarious happenings from her hotel balcony. This time the mystery involves the smuggling of archeological treasures. The Yucatan Peninsula is nicely featured and the story is enhanced by interesting bits of Mayan and Spanish history. Both books proceed at a leisurely pace, and, as with all series, the lure becomes more addictive with each adventure as you return to the lives of familiar friends. Along with being translated into the French, K.C. and her innocuous adventures will also be supported by her own web site.