Review: A Detective's Guide to Marvellous Mysteries


Of the many literary lures to entice kids to page turn into the wee hours of the night, the thrill of a mystery is one of the strongest. Give them great characters with plenty of purpose and pacy plotlines that they can adventure with more than once and well, you might not see said kids for weeks or months. My 34 copies of the Trixie Beldon mystery series are testimony to the power of a good series and Nicki Greenberg’s latest middle grade literary escapades harness that power in the most appealing way.

Meshing the past with adventure, Greenberg takes primary readers on an exhilarating tour from London, across the Atlantic and through one of America’s most bedazzling cities. Mystery and a slapdash of mayhem are never too far away. The cast of tween teen characters is led by robustly intelligent 13-year-old Pepper Stark whose heart tugging family backstory is neatly woven through each book.

The extravagances in Pepper’s life are extreme and jaw dropping yet she exudes a down-to-earth easiness wherever she goes and with whomever she encounters. Her cool-headedness only falters in times of emotional doubt and unrest making her a very likeable character, someone 2022 kids would trust, admire and want to follow despite her living one hundred or so years before them. Handy traits if you have to solve baffling crimes of theft and injury.


Pepper’s first taste for detective work takes place aboard the regal RMS Aquitania Ocean liner, a ship her esteemed father, the Captain has helmed for years. In The Detective’s Guideto Ocean Travel, the widowed Captain reminded me a little of the inscrutable, outwardly stern and feelingless, Captain Von Trapp. He does not suffer fools kindly but receives mountains of respect wherever he goes. He loves his ship perhaps more than his position but appears closed and cold to those who should mean the most to him, like Pepper. Pepper tries hard to ignore this gaping affectionless hole in her filial life, allowing excitement to take over as she finally finds herself aboard her father’s ship during a transatlantic voyage from England to New York city.

Like the real-life Cunard liner, RMS Aquitania is the epitome of glam and fam afloat. Famous and notable passengers rub shoulders with the notoriety of society; the crooks and crafty swindlers praying on the cashed-up and clueless. The star-spangled passenger list is set against a backdrop of decadent food, 1920’s bling and glitz and of course the roiling ocean. Greenberg’s attention to detail is generous and grounding. Many youngsters of today would be familiar with a ‘cruising holiday’ so it may be relatively easy for them to picture the tumbling staircases, glittering atriums, elegant dining rooms and sumptuous lounges of a less modern yet equally luxurious cruise ship This clever assumption is reinforced with Greenberg’s repeated mentions of mealtime delights, mid-morning broth, out-of-bound areas, and the strict class segregation for passengers; her use of accessible nostalgia is like a shot of bracing salty sea air through the lungs, at first unfamiliar then something you want go back for again and again.

But what of the mystery? Well, that is all tied up around a roving leopard, an American stage sensation, and the priceless, world-famous Saffron Diamond, which of course, goes missing. In this animated, ‘locked-room’ mystery, Pepper and her newfound friends from stowage, Norah and Sol, embark on a dashing covert adventure, the kind kids on a boat at sea mindful of being caught while trying to catch the culprit would LOVE. I know I would! In fact, it was exactly the type of adventure afloat I wanted to write about too, so enamoured was I by my own time working and cruising at sea. I don’t think that story will eventuate now though because The Detective’sGuide to Ocean Travel is undisputedly brilliant possessing just the right measures of tension, drama, intrigue, and hijinks ladened fun.

The Detective’s Guide to New York City, is equally as enthralling. I couldn’t wait to resume Pepper’s explorations of the city that never sleeps and although the band of incongruous friends reunite in this follow-on book, it works soundly as a stand-alone novel, too. Taking place a few months on from Pepper’s oceanic caper, Pepper finds herself back in the city where her mother was from. New York city encompasses everything precious about her mother made real by her father’s sentimental recollections. This time though, her memories feel threatened, tarnished by new-comers into their lives, the effervescent Emmaline and her son Elliott. It’s not just Emmaline’s overbearing enthusiasm and ‘niceness’ that irritates Pepper, it’s the way her erstwhile gruff Captain seems to acquiesce to every one of Emmaline’s whims. The fearful iceberg of a father she once fought hard to thaw herself is reduced to a mere puddle by his new love.

But it’s not just mixed-up emotions that Pepper is dealing with. Her best mates’, Norah budding Broadway starlet and Sol, flourishing pastry chef, careers are about to wash down a New York sewer following their implications around the poisoning of notorious food critic Anthony ‘the Shark’ Sharkey. They have everything to lose giving Pepper more impetus than a runaway cab to clear her friends’ names and disclose the true culprit.

What I admire about both novels is their unabashed inclusion of real life, as it was, in that reckless, glamorous Golden Age. The dubious underworld of the speakeasies is brought into sharp focus under the blinding lights of Broadway for instance, all delivered in relatable adventure-enhanced kid speak. The balance of exposition and extravagant fictional folly is Goldilocks just-right and supremely enjoyable. Move over Trixie Beldon; looks like I need more room on my mystery-series-novels shelf. Highly recommended.

Title: The Detective’s Guide to Ocean Travel
Author: Nicki Greenberg
Publisher: Affirm Press, $17.99
Publication Date: February 2022
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9791922400673
For ages: 9 – 14
Type: Middle Grade Fiction

Buy the Book: AffirmPress, Boomerang Books

 

Title: The Detective’s Guide to New York City
Author: Nicki Greenberg
Publisher: Affirm Press, $17.99
Publication Date: June 2022
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781922711748
For ages: 9 – 14
Type: Middle Grade Fiction

Buy the Book: AffirmPress, Boomerang Books

 

 

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