Double, Double — Ellery Queen

Ellery Queen pais a visit to Wrightsville, a small New England town he had known from boyhood holidays. His nostalgia for the place was awakened and shaken when he recieved anonymously some cuttings from the Wrightsville Record, a comparison of which seemed to suggest a connection between some recent deaths in town.
He was then approached by Rima, a wild girl who spoke with the birds, and asked to investigate her father's disappearance.
As well as helping Rima with the process of growing up, Ellery got involved with the nervous local doctor, the glamorous and go-getting newspaper proprieter, and all the other town characters, before he hit on the ingenious solution; in the course of the investigation an almost successful attempt was made on his life.