Review

5 August 2021

The Most Marvellous Mysteries: Read an Extract from Once Upon a Crime by Robin Stevens

The Most Marvellous Mysteries: Read an Extract from Once Upon a Crime by Robin Stevens

Budding super sleuths will love the six new mini-mysteries in Robin Stevens’ new book Once Upon a Crime. In this extract, Hazel Wong’s little sister May is staying with her family in Daisy’s uncle’s flat for the summer. But when a mysterious murder occurs in the flat above, it’s May’s turn to play detective…

May Wong and The Deadly Flat

Written by May Wong, aged almost ten
Saturday 9th September 1939

I am May Wong and no one ever listens to me. If they had, I would still be in Hong Kong with my mother and Teddy instead of stuck in England with a war on, and I wouldn’t have to be speaking English and going to a stupid freezing-cold school with horrible European girls who stare at me. (I haven’t actually gone to Deepdean yet – my sister Rose and I are being put on the train tomorrow – but I know they’ll stare.)

Of course, Rose is excited about school. Rose loves books and she wants to please everyone. Which is why it was so unlucky that the day the murder happened she was the one playing on the stairs.

Continue reading the extract here…

Publisher details

Once Upon a Crime
Author
Robin Stevens
Publisher
Penguin
Genre
Children’s Fiction
Released
03 August, 2021
ISBN
9780241419830

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Synopsis

A thrilling short story collection in the number-one bestselling, award-winning Murder Most Unladylike series. Featuring six marvellous mini-mysteries, including four original, brand-new and never-seen-before stories! Discover The Case of the Second Scream, set aboard the ship carrying Daisy and Hazel back from Hong Kong, and The Case of the Uninvited Guest, where Uncle Felix and Aunt Lucy's wedding is the target for an unlikely threat. The Hound of Weston School sees the Junior Pinkertons investigating, and Hazel's little sister May Wong shows her ambition to be the greatest spy ever in The Case of the Deadly Flat. The Case of the Missing Treasure sees the detectives crack fiendish codes to catch a daring thief who is targeting London's most famous museums, while murder follows our sleuths on holiday in The Case of the Drowned Pearl. The perfect book for all Detective Society fans and avid readers of the Murder Most Unladylike series.
Robin Stevens
About the author

Robin Stevens

Robin Stevens was born in California and grew up in an Oxford college, across the road from the house where Alice in Wonderland lived. She has been making up stories all her life. When she was twelve, her father handed her a copy of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and she realised that she wanted to be either Hercule Poirot or Agatha Christie when she grew up. When it occurred to her that she was never going to be able to grow her own spectacular walrus moustache, she decided that Agatha Christie was the more achievable option. She spent her teenage years at Cheltenham Ladies' College, reading a lot of murder mysteries and hoping that she'd get the chance to do some detecting herself (she didn't). She went to university, where she studied crime fiction, and then worked in children's publishing. She is now a full-time writer. Robin now lives in Oxford with her husband, and her pet bearded dragon, Watson.

Books by Robin Stevens

Once Upon a Crime
Robin Stevens

Once Upon a Crime

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