Murder is Bad Manners by Robin Stevens

Item: Murder Is Bad Manners
Rating: 4
Author: karenbaron

Posted January 30, 2023 by karenbaron in Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Review, Romance, Young Adult / 0 Comments

Murder Is Bad Manners

by Robin Stevens

Series: Murder Most Unladylike Mystery #1
Series Rating:

Published by Simon & Schuster on April 21, 2015
Setting: England
Genres: Middle Grade Mystery
Pages: 321
Format: Kindle
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Get Your Copy at: Amazon

1934. When Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong set up a secret detective agency at Deepdean School for Girls, they struggle to find a truly exciting mystery to investigate. (Unless you count the case of Lavinia's missing tie. Which they don't.)

But then Hazel discovers the body of the Science Mistress, Miss Bell - but when she and Daisy return five minutes later, the body has disappeared. Now the girls have to solve a murder, and prove a murder has happened in the first place before the killer strikes again (and before the police can get there first, naturally),

But will they succeed?

And can their friendship stand the test?

Murder is Bad Manners by Robin Stevens has us solving a mystery in a boarding school for girls in the 1930s.

Will Wells and Wong solve the case before the police are called?

Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong

Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are our self-appointed Sherlock Holmes and John Watson of Deepdean, the school they attend. The girls have their own Detective Agency. Up to this point, all they’ve solved are small cases that aren’t anything like solving a murder mystery.

Daisy is the Sherlock Holmes of the duo and has a father that is a Lord. She thinks that she can solve the case without looking for other clues on all the suspects once she gets it in her mind that she has found the right one. Daisy, to me, seems like she needs to be put into her place at times. She acts as if she is doing Hazel a favor just by being in her presence. Other than that, Daisy makes an excellent investigator as she has the right mind for it, even if she has a one-shot mind when she thinks she knows who did it.

That leaves Hazel as our John Watson of the duo, and she is from Hong Kong. Everyone at the school treats her differently sometimes because of it, especially after everyone starts coming up with rumors about why certain people are disappearing from their lives at the school. Hazel isn’t too worried about them since she is just trying to solve the case with Daisy. If it weren’t for Hazel, there wouldn’t be a case for them to solve anyways. Hazel also needs to grow a backbone when it comes to telling Daisy that she is wrong.

Of these two sleuths, I must say that I like Hazel. It also doesn’t help that Hazel is even more like Watson as she writes the story as John did with Sherlock’s cases.

The Mystery

Hazel Wong went to get her sweater from the gym where she left it last, only to stumble upon the body of her science teacher. She knew the teacher was dead and ran to find Daisy and one of their prefects, who thought they had lied, especially after seeing no dead body. So Daisy believes Hazel wouldn’t lie about this and decides they must investigate who could have killed poor Miss Bell, the science teacher. That act opens up many things for these two girls. I loved how they embraced their roles as detectives and how it was shown across the pages. Ms. Stevens has done an excellent job of showcasing that even as eighth-grade girls, they are good detectives. I knew it had to be someone but I never, not even a little pinprick in the back of my brain, thought it was who it was.

Four Stars

Murder is Bad Manners by Robin Stevens is the first book in what can only be a fantastic series from the one and only Ms. Stevens. All of the characters came through beautifully, and I felt terrible for Hazel when she had to deal with some of her dormmates. Overall, it was a great read, and I liked being sent through time to the 1930s to watch these two young girls solve their case. This is the first time I’ve read a book with a dead body in it for a middle grade read, but it works for this series.

I am giving Murder is Bad Manners by Robin Stevens four stars, and I’m recommending it to anyone who wants to pick up this series for themselves or a kid that they think would enjoy a terrific murder mystery at an English girl’s boarding school back in the 1930s. All of these covers look fantastic.

Murder Most Unladylike Mystery Series

Thank you for dropping by! I hope you enjoyed this review of Murder is Bad Manners by Robin Stevens.

Until the next time,

Happy Reading!

About Robin Stevens

Robin Stevens was born in California and grew up in Oxford, England, across the road from the house where Alice in Wonderland lived. She has been making up stories all her life.

When she was twelve, her father handed her a copy of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and she realized that she wanted to be either Hercule Poirot or Agatha Christie when she grew up. When it occurred to her that she was never going to be able to grow her own spectacular walrus mustache, she decided that Agatha Christie was the more achievable option.

She spent her teenage years at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, a boarding school in England, reading a lot of murder mysteries and hoping that she’d get the chance to do some detecting herself (she didn’t). She then went to university, where she studied crime fiction, and worked at a children’s publisher.

^bio taken from Amazon

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