Mystery Review: Top Marks for Murder

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I don't know whether to review this as juvy or YA. I put it more toward YA both due to age of the characters (15) and subject matter (murder, in a cozy-mystery way).

 


Participating this week in the fantastic Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays blog hop hosted by Greg Pattrige of Always in the Middle. Check out his blog for a list of additional middle grade reviews. I've been discovering some great reads there.

Title: Top Marks for Murder

 Author: Robin Stevens

Publication info: Kindle edition, Simon & Schuster, 2023, 260 pages. Originally published 2019 by Puffin.

Publisher's Blurb:
Daisy and Hazel are finally back at Deepdean, and the school is preparing for a most exciting event: the fiftieth Anniversary.

Plans for a weekend of celebrations are in full swing. But all is not well, for in the detectives' long absence, Deepdean has changed. Daisy has lost her crown to a fascinating new girl - and many of the Detective Society's old allies are now their sworn enemies.

Then the girls witness a shocking incident in the woods close by - a crime that they're sure is linked to the Anniversary. As parents descend upon Deepdean, decades-old grudges, rivalries and secrets begin to surface, and soon Deepdean's future is at stake.

Can the girls solve the case - and save their home?

My Review:
As usual, Robin Stevens delivers with this mystery series that I don't even know how to classify. It gets tagged as Middle Grade or YA, but honestly, despite the youth of the protagonists (I think they've made it to 15), it is a murder mystery. But it's also a school story, so squarely in the land of MG fiction.

Daisy and Hazel are growing up, and as we've seen with the last couple of books in the series, Hazel is actually growing up a little faster than Daisy, whatever the latter may think. One of the great features of these books is that we see Daisy through the maturing eyes of her best friend, and Hazel is pretty smart. As she sees Daisy more clearly, so do we.

In this story, we see the pair making an awkward reentry after missing much of the year at Deepdean school. Their chief friends are still there for them, but no one is as lost in admiration of Daisy as they once were, and it's a hard pill for her to swallow. The murder comes, in a way, as a saving grace for Daisy, who, as Hazel reminds us, has lost an awful lot in the past year or two and isn't as impervious as she'd like to think.

The mystery itself is well constructed, with lots of convincing red herrings. The police, in the form of their old friend Inspector Priestly, take the girls seriously. To their delight he treats them as equals and takes their investigations seriously, after his long experience with them. (The village police are another matter but are mostly left out of things). The solution, in the end, makes sense though I'm not sure we had enough to go on to find it ourselves.


My Recommendation:
I continue to recommend the series and this book is a worthy addition. I probably wouldn't recommend for kids under 12 due to the subject matter (murder, including possible deaths of and by parents--no spoiler as the girls reach this conclusion almost at once).


FTC Disclosure: I checked Top Marks for Murder out of the library and received nothing further from the writer or publisher for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."  




©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2024   
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Comments

  1. Natalie AguirreSeptember 11, 2024 at 10:48 AM

    This sounds like a great mystery series I'd enjoy. I'd consider it more YA because of the age of the characters, but it's in the gray area, like you mentioned.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rebecca M. DouglassSeptember 11, 2024 at 10:51 AM

      Yes--and in some of the books in the series there are other issues that are also more YA. The writing style is more MG most of the time, in my opinion, but not in any way that prevents this alleged adult from enjoying them.

      Delete

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