By Adam Hills
Published by Puffin
Adam Hills is yet another comedian who has turned to fiction for the 9-13 age group. And he’s done it rather engagingly.
Charley is only 12 but she’s already got a lively career as an international singer. George is her best friend and he’s brilliant at social media, photography and IT. He wants to be a comedian like his creator. The complement each other well. Moreover, this is a book which unobtrusively ticks a few boxes because George is black and a wheelchair user, but neither point is never laboured.
A sparkily written crime novel, it allows us to travel with the two of them to some of Charley’s gigs in European cities – where, each time they’re in town, a priceless work of art disappears. The coincidence is too great so Charley and George, to the consternation of their parents, become suspects.
In the manner of all children’s adventure stories, that obviously means that Charley and George have to turn detective and solve the mystery themselves, thereby clearing their own names. They also need to make sure that Charley’s career doesn’t hit the buffers which it will, of course, if she’s a convicted art thief. Apart from anything else she’d be grounded at home.
It’s fun, original, and I really liked the characterisation. This promises to be a series. The next book, which publishes in February 2023 is Rockstar Detectives: Murder at the Movies
Review by Susan Elkin