Jolly Foul Play: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery - Softcover

Stevens, Robin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141369698 ISBN 13: 9780141369693

Publisher: Puffin, 2016

Synopsis

The fantastic new mystery from the author of Murder Most Unladylike. Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong have returned to Deepdean for a new school term, but nothing is the same. There's a new Head Girl, Elizabeth Hurst, and a team of Prefects - and these bullying Big Girls are certainly not good eggs. Then, after the fireworks display on Bonfire Night, Elizabeth is found - murdered. Many girls at Deepdean had reason to hate Elizabeth, but who might have committed such foul play? Could the murder be linked to the secrets and scandals, scribbled on scraps of paper, that are suddenly appearing around the school? And with their own friendship falling to pieces, how will Daisy and Hazel solve this mystery? Praise for the Murder Most Unladylike series: 'Ripping good fun' The Times 'Thrilling' Guardian 'Top class' Financial Times 'A delight' Daily Mail

About this title

About the Author

Robin Stevens was born in California and grew up in an Oxford college. She has been making up stories all her life. She spent her teenage years at Cheltenham Ladies' College, went on to study crime fiction at university, and then became a children's book editor. She is now a full-time writer and the creator of the bestselling, award-winning Murder Most Unladylike series. Robin lives in London with her husband and her pet bearded dragon, Watson.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Jolly Foul Play I

We were all looking up, and so we missed the murder.

I have never seen Daisy so furious. She has been grinding her teeth (so hard that my teeth ache in sympathy) and saying, “Oh, Hazel! How could we not notice it? We were on the spot!”

You see, Daisy needs to know things, and see everything, and get in everywhere. Being reminded that despite all the measures she puts in place (having informants in the younger years, ingratiating herself with the older girls and Jones the handyman and the teachers), there are still things going on at Deepdean that she does not understand—well, that has put her in an even worse mood than the one she has been in lately.

And, if I’m honest, I feel strangely ashamed. The Detective Society has solved three real murder mysteries so far, and yet we still missed a murder taking place under our noses, in our very own Deepdean School for Girls—the place where we began our detective careers one year ago.

It really is funny to think about that. It seems in a way as though we have not moved at all—or as though we have made a circle, and come all the way back to the beginning again. I suppose I still look almost exactly like the Hazel I was when I ran into the Gym and found Miss Bell, our science teacher, lying on the floor last October. I am not much taller, anyway. When I measured myself last week, I found I have hardly grown at all—or at least, not upward. My hair is still straight and dark brown, my face is still round, and I still have the pimple on my nose (I suppose it must be a different pimple, but it does not look that way). Inside, though, I feel quite different. All the things that have happened in the past year have made me quite a new shape, I think—one who has faced up to the murderer at Daisy’s home, Fallingford, and defied my father to solve the Orient Express case. On the other hand, sometimes I think that even though Daisy keeps on shooting upward and becoming blonder and lovelier than ever, she has stayed the same inside. She bounces back from things, like a rubber ball—not even what happened at Fallingford could truly alter her.

Before the fifth of November, I had not been enjoying Deepdean much this semester. Just like the changes that have taken place in me, the school has felt different from last year, and not at all in a good way. It has felt as though something awful were rushing toward us. Last night was dreadful, but now it has happened I feel almost relieved. It is like the difference between waiting to go in to the dentist and sitting in his chair.

And now that there is a murder to solve, Daisy and I can be the Detective Society again. It is sometimes difficult being Daisy’s best friend, but being her vice president and secretary is much more simple. This case, though, will not be simple at all.

You see, the person who has died—who we think has been murdered—is our new Head Girl.

About this edition

• Publisher: Puffin
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0141369698
• ISBN 13: 9780141369693
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336