Madame Cadillac's Ghost

Allie and Shoo Spywell is just regular kids-well, sort of. It's just that their dad is an archaeologist, and their mother is a mystery writer. The Spywell kids always seem to get a few more history lessons than they would like. While left on their own to explore the Detroit Historical Museum, Allie and Shoo soon meet strange characters. Shoo meets a boy in red tennis shoes who becomes even more mysterious and stranger as the afternoon wears on. Allie, meanwhile, is taken by the woeful stories of a weeping woman who is dressed in an ancient French gown and claims to be the wife of Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, Detroit's founder. Allie learns the true accounts and mysterious happenings of old Detroit as she tries to warn Shoo that his new friend is not a friend at all, but holds the secrets of Madame Cadillac and her husband. Shoo is the only one to save them but will he be able to rescue them before they are permanently trapped in Detroit's past? The boy in the red shoes is actually based on the "Red Devil" that is found throughout the writings of Cadillac, and not an imaginary character created by Panagopoulos.

Allie and Shoo Spywell is just regular kids-well, sort of. It's just that their dad is an archaeologist, and their mother is a mystery writer. The Spywell kids always seem to get a few more history lessons than they would like. While left on their own to explore the Detroit Historical Museum, Allie and Shoo soon meet strange characters. Shoo meets a boy in red tennis shoes who becomes even more mysterious and stranger as the afternoon wears on. Allie, meanwhile, is taken by the woeful stories of a weeping woman who is dressed in an ancient French gown and claims to be the wife of Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, Detroit's founder. Allie learns the true accounts and mysterious happenings of old Detroit as she tries to warn Shoo that his new friend is not a friend at all, but holds the secrets of Madame Cadillac and her husband. Shoo is the only one to save them but will he be able to rescue them before they are permanently trapped in Detroit's past? The boy in the red shoes is actually based on the "Red Devil" that is found throughout the writings of Cadillac, and not an imaginary character created by Panagopoulos.

Award winning, Great Lakes author Janie Lynn Panagopoulos is a historian who shares her love of the subject with readers both young and young-at-heart Writing professionally for over 34 years, Janie’s passion lies in detailed historical research where she spends three to eight years researching academic facts in libraries, museums, and archival collections worldwide, to help bring history alive for her readers. However, she does not stop with the academic viewpoint, dressing in period costume of the era she is studying. She tries to experience what it might be like to live the life of those she is learning about. Whether it is drudging through the snow on snowshoes or following behind a dog sled, trekking along a military supply road in a wagon train, cooking over wood stoves or an open fire to experiment with historic recipes, cutting down trees, milking cows and learning the jobs of the lumberjacks, hiking ancient trails, canoeing thousands of miles along fur trade routes, studying with traditional Native Americans, or participating in archaeological digs, she had done it all.  Her research model is not just to read about the past but experience it both physically and emotionally, to help bring history alive in her writing.