@Beyond Birthday - while that series sounds interesting it's not my lost one. I'll have to check it out though. Thanks!

Alright, someone suggested The Secret Country. There are 5 main characters, not 4, but it was published in '85, is a trilogy, and the characters do go to a different world full of trouble. xD Is it the one?

Someone else suggested The Magic Faraway Tree.

Or maybe Everworld

Link to the reddit post

@saloon - sadly none of those are it.

I'll keep checking that reddit post.

Thanks for trying to find it

Also suggested were Virginia Hamilton's Justice Cycle and The Secret World of Og. Suggestions have trickled to a halt over the past two days though, and I think your book may remain an open case. >_<

Okay, maybe someone here can help. I've looked everywhere else...

So, back in Jr. high, I found a book in the school library and started to read it, but I only got through a few pages before I had to return it (I don't remember why.) I've always wanted to find it again, but I've had no luck.

From what I remember, it started with a young girl who had a star-shaped birthmark on her hand. She was the daughter of a kind or some kind of high-ranking diplomat, and it starts with the girl skipping a class and seeing elephants for the first time. (It's an alternate universe, so she's excited because she didn't think elephants were real.) When the girl's tutor- or governess, or teacher- finds her, they tell her to go see her father. So she goes to find her father and tells him about the elephants, but he doesn't believe her, and he has other things to talk about anyway. He introduces a boy she's never seen before, and the boy also has the star-shaped mark on his hand, in the same place as she does.

That's as far as I got, and I'd really like to find this book again. If anyone knows of it, I'd really appreciate the help.

Sorry for a late and disappointing response - I haven't heard of this book. >_< I'll keep searching though! Do you remember if the birthmark was on her palm or the back of her hand? Or around how old the characters were?

Thanks. The birthmark was on her palm, I remember because I wanted to find one on my palm, too, and ended up drawing one instead XD I don't remember the age of the characters, or if they even mentioned the age, but based on where I found the book I'm willing to bet that the girl at least was somewhere between 10 and 14 years old.

I'd like some help finding a book. Almost 20 years ago, before I moved to an English speaking country, I read a book that I had borrowed from the library. Of course, since I was moving, I had to return it even though I hadn't quite finished reading it. It was a mystery. It may have been written by Agatha Christie, as I was quite taken with her writing back then. I do know that it was originally in English but translated into my native language, as all the clues were in English and the main characters had English names. The basic premise was this: a rich person died and people had gathered to hear how his assets would be divided up between them. Because the rich person loved puzzles, he made some clues and divided them up between teams. Each team had some sentence/word fragments and they were all different. Predictably, they started killing each other trying to get at each others' clue fragments. I had written down the clues as they surfaced but after almost 20 years and 4 moves, it seems I had decided to throw out the notebook where I wrote my notes. I do remember that one of the clues was "the_", the _ being a random letter. I remember that because in the book, the characters argued whether that clue was a fragment of a whole word or just the word "the" with an extra letter as an error.

So here are the clues, as it were:

• It was written over 20 years ago
• It was popular enough to have been translated into different languages
• It was a mystery
• It was set in an English speaking country
• It started with a death of a rich person
• It involved inheritance because of that death
• It involved serial murders
• It had a puzzle outside of the murders
• One of the clues for the puzzle was a nonsensical word starting with "the"
• It MAY have been written by Agatha Christie

I know this is a long shot and a tall order, but I would appreciate any help you can give me. Thank you.

I know it has been months since you asked, @musen, but I may have an answer for you. That sounds like The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin.

I'm sorry, it doesn't sound familiar. (Sorry I know it's been months but I kind of forgot about this thread XD)