Winner of the 2021 Edgar Allan Poe Award for best children’s mystery.

Oh my, what a lot of fun this middle-grade murder mystery is. Myrtle Hardcastle is a whip-smart twelve-year-old with ambitions to join the Detective Bureau. She’s a wordsmith with an enquiring mind, a scholar’s vocabulary, and a telescope.

The trouble starts with that telescope. Something’s amiss at the house next-door. Myrtle investigates, and before you can spell Celastrina argiolus, a murder is discovered, clues accrue, and red herrings swim invitingly through the narrative current. Or should I say they sprout like weeds in the garden, for this is a mystery of botany and horticulture.

There was quicklime in the greenhouse - gardeners used it to improve the soil, but murderers used it to improve decomposition. - Ch 7

True to classic form, Myrtle not only sports a deerstalker, but has a sidekick: modern-minded governess Miss Judson - a Mary Poppins figure with impeccable poise and sang-froid: a foil to Myrtle’s occasional outbursts of bubble and pique.

In a fun bit of intertextual gameplay, each chapter is headed with an epigraph: a quotation from the Principles of Detection: A Manual for the Amateur and Professional Investigator, 1893 by H.M. Hardcastle.

“A true Investigator is a master of the art of Observation, paying keen attention to his surroundings. Even the least significant piece of evidence may prove the key to unraveling the truth.” - H.M. Hardcastle, Principles of Detection

The reader can deduce who the writer of this authoritative work is.

Wordplay abounds; in fact it was the pun on Myrtle in the title which initially drew my attention. And thumb’s up for the commodious bathroom.

Names here have meaning. At least three characters are named after flowers, and two have flowers named after them. We have characters who share names, and others operating behind pseudonyms. There’s also a literary genealogy running through the novel: the setting is Swinburne, and key characters are named Hardy, Wodehouse, and Blakeney. On the subject of the latter, Reader, I adored him, and hope he reappears in subsequent novels. More on this below.

I encountered this book in audio format, narrated by Bethan Rose Young with all the crunch and sweetness of a candy-apple. Her voice was warm and clear, with smugness and triumph in all the right places.

The series continues with How to Get Away with Myrtle and the excellent Cold-Blooded Myrtle.

Premeditated Myrtle is a delightful, witty, and intelligent historical whodunnit. As for Myrtle, she is the kind of heroine who has stuff in her pockets. Highly recommended for children aged nine plus and amateur sleuths of all ages.

Many thanks to Elizabeth C. Bunce, Algonquin Young Readers, and NetGalley for my advanced listening copy.

WHAT TO READ NEXT

The Highland Falcon Thief by MG Leonard and Sam Sedgman