The two Bob-Whites who see the least amount of action? Ex-street thug and nephew of Regan, Dan Mangan and the pretty, slightly scatterbrained Di Lynch. I always feel bad for them. Well mostly for Dan, because Di has on more than one occasion been a real nastypants to Trix.
Poor Dan never gets to join the rest of the gang on travel adventures because of his job helping old Mr. Maypenny patrol the Wheeler’s game preserve. First of all, nobody hunts the preserve except for Maypenny himself who has permission, and Mr. Wheeler. It’s patrolled by horseback every darn day by the old man or Dan. Is it hunting season all year round in Sleepyside and surrounding area? Can’t old man Maypenny manage by himself for one or two days? There can’t be that much to do.
And Di…well even for someone who is new money she manages to get uppity real quick, especially with Trixie. She gets shipped around in a limo and her horse Sunny the palomino doesn’t even have to be schooled for the turf show, because there are apparently only three or four palominos in the area and they are only judged on looks, not performance…much like Di herself. I will give her credit where credit is due tho. In one book trixie has insomnia and is restless and thrashing around in bed, and Di gets up and applies cool compresses to her head until she can relax and sleep…that’s pretty decent of her. Plus in the Cobbetts Island mystery, she calls a manger a “food box” and sings “away in a manger, Noelle ate her hay”. I always thought that was adorable. But Di is pretty much bipolar, she can wig out on poor Trix at any moment with little provocation.
But, being the older sister to two sets of twins (apparently Mrs. Lynch was on fertility drugs) means Di sometimes misses out on sleuthing due to her built-in babysitter role. Or sometimes they explain her absence by saying she had gone off w her parents for 2 weeks. That may be a good thing seeing as she’s moody as hell.