So awesome to be back in the world started by Stevens with The Murder Most Unladylike Series. In this book set during World War 2, May Wong ( Hazel's baby sister) doesn't want to spend her time during the conflict in Deepdene boarding school so she follows a cryptic note to try and join a spy agency called the Ministry. When she shows up on the doorstep at the address listed, only another young boy called Eric is there and they are greeted by Daisy who slams the door in their face. Undetermined, the two would-be spies work out that something is going on in a grand manor far away called Elysium Hall, so they pretend to be evacuee children and get sent to live in the estate of the Verey household. Once there they witness all sorts of strange happenings that could be the work of spies selling secrets to the Nazis, as well as ghostly apparitions, missing items. a mystery man in the garden and eventually a murder or two.... All while trying to work out their on-going squabbles with Fionnula an American girl who also suspects that Eric and May are up to no good. Will they be able to sort it out and qualify to work for the Ministry?

Great stuff. Fionnula , May and Eric are delightful characters that work well with each other and the setting of the large house with the preposterously stupid grown-ups caught up in their own tragic worlds is great. I love Stevens' way of piggy-backing on to the Agatha Christie trope and successfully inserting kids into a plausible situation - i.e. wartime evacuees with the "children should be seen and not heard" motto allowing them to run around quietly in the background collecting data on all the adults. Can't wait for the rest of the series. Great escapism from the drudgery of real life. ( )