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Twelve-year-old Myrtle Hardcastle has a passion for justice and a Highly Unconventional obsession with criminal science. Armed with her father’s law books and her mum’s microscope, Myrtle studies toxicology, keeps abreast of the latest developments in crime scene analysis, and Observes her neighbors in the quiet village of Swinburne, England.
When her next-door neighbor, a wealthy spinster and eccentric breeder of rare flowers, dies under Mysterious Circumstances, Myrtle seizes her chance. With her unflappable governess, Miss Ada Judson, by her side, Myrtle takes it upon herself to prove Miss Wodehouse was murdered and find the killer, even if nobody else believes her — not even her father, the town prosecutor.
First sentence: “‘Correct me if I’m wrong.’ My governess, Miss Judson, strolled into the schoolroom, her sharp bootheels clicking like a telegraph.”
Move over Sherlock Holmes, there’s a new detective in town! Twelve-year-old Myrtle Hardcastle is making a run for his money, and she will not let any stones be unturned until she gets to the truth behind the murder! And the the murder she’s investigating? Well, it’s her wealthy elderly neighbor—Miss Wodehouse—who supposedly died in the bath. Did she though, or was there a sinister reason for her death?