Published
October 2012 Walker
From
the publisher:
Tenth in the brilliantly addictive series of murder
mysteries by an acclaimed and popular writer.
Poppy and Graham are staying in a grand country house for
the weekend to help at a family christening party, but they're seriously
unimpressed. Dull, dull, dull! Not to mention the fact that baby Marmaduke has
taken a shine to Graham and won't let him out of his sight without shrieking
the place down. Then events take a mysterious turn when a filthy tramp turns up
in the churchyard ... dead. It isn't long before Poppy and Graham realize that
his death is suspicious - as are all the others that follow.
I
know the Poppy Fields books, and they have been quite popular. I personally think the covers had something
to do with that. They looked just bloody
and gory enough to attract the readers.
When I saw this book, I didn’t even recognise it as a Poppy Fields
Mystery, as the cover is completely different.
See the pic to the right for Book 9, that will give you an idea how they
used to look.
Three
dead bodies and being stranded in an old
manor house with a murderer, not the usual scenario in a book for
children. The Poppy Fields books have
taken one step up from being a regular mystery series, they are in fact murder
mysteries. While the premise of the
story may sound odd for a book for a child, the ‘murders’ take place ‘off
camera’ as it were, so we don’t see the killer in action, we just see the end
result, the dead bodies.
In
this book, Poppy and her friend Graham are roped in as servers for Graham’s
Mums catering business. The family they
are working for are very rich, and more than a little odd. When a tramp is found dead at the cemetery,
it is sad, but no one thinks of foul play.
When Great Uncle Lawrence dies during the party, again no one thinks foul
play, as he is very old. Poppy and
Graham are already having their suspicions, as they have noticed a few
anomalies that no one else has seen. It’s
not until another r guest is found dead that they are certain a murder is I n
their midst!
This
book reads like an Agatha Christie for children, and it’s not surprising they
are so popular as there is nothing much else like this. If you loo at the
earlier cover above, you would think that it is a series aimed at young
teenagers, but the change in cover probably has something to do with the fact
that the characters are quite young and the readers start from about age
10. As I mentioned there’s no gruesome
descriptions, but the storyline and themes are quite sophisticated, so it would
suit a mature reader who wants something a little different.
Who will like this
book: Boys and Girls age 10+
Read it if you like: Murder mysteries
Read it if you like: Murder mysteries
No comments:
Post a Comment