Mistletoe And Murder by Robin Stevens
Nov. 27th, 2016 12:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
”These attacks are not merely pranks or accidents,” said Daisy gravely. “They are intended – and I believe something truly terrible will happen before Christmas Day.”
Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are spending the Christmas hols in snowy Cambridge. Hazel has high hopes of its beautiful libraries and inviting tea-rooms – but there is danger lurking in the dark stairwells of Maudlin College.
Two days before Christmas, a brutal accident takes place – but the Detective Society suspect murder. Faced with fierce competition from a rival agency, they must use all their cunning and courage to find the killer (in time for Christmas Day, of course).
It’s several weeks after JOLLY FOUL PLAY. Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are at Cambridge University to spend Christmas with Daisy’s older brother, Bertie. Hazel’s particularly excited that Alexander Arcady (head of the Junior Pinkertons) will be there with his friend, George Mukherjee, because she hasn’t seen him since FIRST CLASS MURDER.
Bertie’s friend, Donald Melling (the heir to a large fortune) has been the victim of a series of increasingly dangerous pranks, apparently caused by his twin brother, Chummy with whom he frequently argues so Daisy makes a bet with the Junior Pinkertons over proving that Chummy wants to kill Donald for his fortune. But two days before Christmas it’s Chummy who’s found dead when one of his own pranks goes wrong. The police think it was an accident but all four detectives are convinced there’s foul play afoot and it will take all their deductive skills and cunning to identify the culprit ...
The fifth in Robin Stevens’s bestselling middle grade crime series is another fiendishly plotted murder mystery with the added complication of a love triangle between Wells, Wong and Alexander and the introduction of newcomer George Mukherjee, a British Indian with an intellect and strength of will to match Daisy’s. Stevens shows that female students at Cambridge were treated as second-class citizens (both through having limited funds and because they weren’t entitled to be awarded degrees) and well uses the real secret Cambridge climbing society. I also enjoyed how Stevens develops the wedge put in Wells and Wong’s friendship in JOLLY FOUL PLAY, throwing in Hazel’s crush on Alexander and Alexander’s crush on Daisy to add emotional tension but then introducing the practical and intelligent George who shares many of Hazel’s experiences with racism and has an intellect to match Daisy’s to avoid what could be yet another dull love triangle. In fact Stevens does particularly well at highlighting 1930s racism, including the blatant abuse suffered by Chinese student Alfred Chung at Chummy’s hands and also Daisy and Hazel’s assumptions about George’s ethnicity. The only bum notes are the way a constable is left to investigate the deaths (which I didn’t quite believe) and the fact that the bodies aren’t immediately removed while the reaction to a revelation at the end of the book didn’t quite ring true for the times to me but otherwise I really enjoyed this book and look forward to book 6.
The Verdict:
The fifth in Robin Stevens’s bestselling middle grade crime series is another fiendishly plotted murder mystery with the added complication of a love triangle between Wells, Wong and Alexander and the introduction of newcomer George Mukherjee, a British Indian with an intellect and strength of will to match Daisy’s. Stevens shows that female students at Cambridge were treated as second-class citizens (both through having limited funds and because they weren’t entitled to be awarded degrees) and well uses the real secret Cambridge climbing society. I also enjoyed how Stevens develops the wedge put in Wells and Wong’s friendship in JOLLY FOUL PLAY, throwing in Hazel’s crush on Alexander and Alexander’s crush on Daisy to add emotional tension but then introducing the practical and intelligent George who shares many of Hazel’s experiences with racism and has an intellect to match Daisy’s to avoid what could be yet another dull love triangle. In fact Stevens does particularly well at highlighting 1930s racism, including the blatant abuse suffered by Chinese student Alfred Chung at Chummy’s hands and also Daisy and Hazel’s assumptions about George’s ethnicity. The only bum notes are the way a constable is left to investigate the deaths (which I didn’t quite believe) and the fact that the bodies aren’t immediately removed while the reaction to a revelation at the end of the book didn’t quite ring true for the times to me but otherwise I really enjoyed this book and look forward to book 6.
Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are spending the Christmas hols in snowy Cambridge. Hazel has high hopes of its beautiful libraries and inviting tea-rooms – but there is danger lurking in the dark stairwells of Maudlin College.
Two days before Christmas, a brutal accident takes place – but the Detective Society suspect murder. Faced with fierce competition from a rival agency, they must use all their cunning and courage to find the killer (in time for Christmas Day, of course).
It’s several weeks after JOLLY FOUL PLAY. Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are at Cambridge University to spend Christmas with Daisy’s older brother, Bertie. Hazel’s particularly excited that Alexander Arcady (head of the Junior Pinkertons) will be there with his friend, George Mukherjee, because she hasn’t seen him since FIRST CLASS MURDER.
Bertie’s friend, Donald Melling (the heir to a large fortune) has been the victim of a series of increasingly dangerous pranks, apparently caused by his twin brother, Chummy with whom he frequently argues so Daisy makes a bet with the Junior Pinkertons over proving that Chummy wants to kill Donald for his fortune. But two days before Christmas it’s Chummy who’s found dead when one of his own pranks goes wrong. The police think it was an accident but all four detectives are convinced there’s foul play afoot and it will take all their deductive skills and cunning to identify the culprit ...
The fifth in Robin Stevens’s bestselling middle grade crime series is another fiendishly plotted murder mystery with the added complication of a love triangle between Wells, Wong and Alexander and the introduction of newcomer George Mukherjee, a British Indian with an intellect and strength of will to match Daisy’s. Stevens shows that female students at Cambridge were treated as second-class citizens (both through having limited funds and because they weren’t entitled to be awarded degrees) and well uses the real secret Cambridge climbing society. I also enjoyed how Stevens develops the wedge put in Wells and Wong’s friendship in JOLLY FOUL PLAY, throwing in Hazel’s crush on Alexander and Alexander’s crush on Daisy to add emotional tension but then introducing the practical and intelligent George who shares many of Hazel’s experiences with racism and has an intellect to match Daisy’s to avoid what could be yet another dull love triangle. In fact Stevens does particularly well at highlighting 1930s racism, including the blatant abuse suffered by Chinese student Alfred Chung at Chummy’s hands and also Daisy and Hazel’s assumptions about George’s ethnicity. The only bum notes are the way a constable is left to investigate the deaths (which I didn’t quite believe) and the fact that the bodies aren’t immediately removed while the reaction to a revelation at the end of the book didn’t quite ring true for the times to me but otherwise I really enjoyed this book and look forward to book 6.
The Verdict:
The fifth in Robin Stevens’s bestselling middle grade crime series is another fiendishly plotted murder mystery with the added complication of a love triangle between Wells, Wong and Alexander and the introduction of newcomer George Mukherjee, a British Indian with an intellect and strength of will to match Daisy’s. Stevens shows that female students at Cambridge were treated as second-class citizens (both through having limited funds and because they weren’t entitled to be awarded degrees) and well uses the real secret Cambridge climbing society. I also enjoyed how Stevens develops the wedge put in Wells and Wong’s friendship in JOLLY FOUL PLAY, throwing in Hazel’s crush on Alexander and Alexander’s crush on Daisy to add emotional tension but then introducing the practical and intelligent George who shares many of Hazel’s experiences with racism and has an intellect to match Daisy’s to avoid what could be yet another dull love triangle. In fact Stevens does particularly well at highlighting 1930s racism, including the blatant abuse suffered by Chinese student Alfred Chung at Chummy’s hands and also Daisy and Hazel’s assumptions about George’s ethnicity. The only bum notes are the way a constable is left to investigate the deaths (which I didn’t quite believe) and the fact that the bodies aren’t immediately removed while the reaction to a revelation at the end of the book didn’t quite ring true for the times to me but otherwise I really enjoyed this book and look forward to book 6.
