cover image Premeditated Myrtle (A Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery #1)

Premeditated Myrtle (A Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery #1)

Elizabeth C. Bunce. Algonquin, $17.95 (368p) ISBN 978-1-6162-0918-6

Channeling classic Victorian whodunits, Bunce’s (the Thief Errant series) detective series opener features a quirky, winning narrator and a lively secondary cast. Thanks to governess Miss Judson, 12-year-old Myrtle Hardcastle, who is middle-class and white, is training to become a Young Lady of Quality. Inspired by the examples of her late mother, who was a medical student, and her widowed lawyer father, Myrtle tends to be anything but proper, for example erecting an observation point from which to chronicle neighborhood events. When elderly next-door neighbor, scornful Miss Wodehouse, doesn’t follow her routine one morning, Myrtle summons the constabulary. After the revelation of Miss Wodehouse’s death and the arrival of the elderly woman’s heretofore unknown relatives, Myrtle suspects she was murdered and enlists Miss Judson to solve the mystery. A generous, well-wrought relationship between governess and charge complements tightly plotted twists. As “the precocious daughter who lurked about everywhere being impertinent and morbid,” Myrtle is as clever as she is determined, and her expertise—seen in evidence collection and courtroom antics—is certain to delight genre stalwarts and mystery novices alike. Publishing simultaneously: How to Get Away with Myrtle (A Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery #2). Ages 10–up. [em]Agent: Erin Murphy, Erin Murphy Literary. (Oct.) [/em]