Janice Hallett. Puffin Books, (464p) ISBN: 9780241636183. Middle Grade, read 17/04/25, Paperback ★★★★☆

A Box Full of Murders

I was very excited and intrigued when I saw a middle grade murder mystery from Janice Hallett as her murder mysteries for adults are extremely popular and will have instant name recognition for adults buying for their kids.

Ava and Luke’s parent have separated and Ava is with Mum and Luke is with Dad, when Luke finds a box full of secret papers in the loft.

This separation gives the vehicle to show the documents that were found as Luke texts them to Ava, we also follow their text conversations as they discuss the mystery as it unfolds.

Well-paced and full of clues and red herrings, but also has a lot of information on how to look at evidence so that younger people can interrogate the text better and learn the conventions of murder mysteries as the book goes on.

Set in 1983 on a Scouts and Guides last camp as the site has been bought and going to be developed into a waste processing plant by what seems like a very dislikable company and brimming with comic characters (Officers Grudge and Grimm for a start), miscreants, obvious suspects, and intrepid investigators.

A great little mystery that had one or two little things that niggled me but wouldn’t be noticeable by the target audience, well-paced, funny, tense, and a great start to reading murder mysteries for the younger audience.

I received this from Puffin Books in exchange for an honest review.