Girl Sleuths
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By Carol Pouliot
The girl sleuths in the books listed here are smart, sassy, independent, and clever. They’re strong role models for young readers looking for inspiration. Enjoy!!
Middle Grade Detectives
1. Into the Lion’s Den by Linda Fairstein
Devlin Quick is a middle-schooler living in New York City with her widowed police-commissioner mother. Her friend Liza, a visiting student from Argentina, thinks she saw someone tear a page out of a valuable old book of maps in the New York Public Library. New York City is Devlin’s playground. She’s comfortable and at home in the Big Apple. Enlisting Devlin’s grandmother and another friend, Devlin and Liza navigate above and below ground to solve this page-turning mystery.
2. Midnight in the Piazza by Tiffany Parks
When Beatrice Archer gets the crushing news that she and her widowed father are moving to Rome, Italy, and she has to leave her school, her friends, and her life, she’s devastated. She slowly comes around to the idea thanks to her love of history. Beatrice and her dad settle into their apartment which overlooks a square with an ancient fountain that captures her interest and imagination. One night, she witnesses a mysterious stranger steal four statues from the basin. Beatrice sets out on a quest to uncover the theft and to learn more about the fabled fountain.
3. Me, Frida, and the Secret of the Peacock Ring by Angela Cervantes
Paloma Marquez’s summer is going to be ruined. Her academic mother has won a grant and they’re headed to Mexico City, birthplace of her late father. Seeing she has no choice, Paloma decides to use the trip to discover more about her father, of whom she has no real memories. At a party in La Casa Azul, home of famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, Paloma meets brother and sister Gael and Lizzie, who enlist her help in tracking down a national treasure—Frida’s lost peacock ring. Soon, Paloma spies a mysterious man in a black car who appears wherever she goes. Paloma realizes her new friends have a secret. What have they gotten her into? Filled with vibrant color and culture, the settings in this book sing! It’s the book I would like to have written if I wrote middle grade mysteries.
4. The Ambrose Deception by Emily Ecton
A mysterious organization selects Melissa, Wilf, and Bondi, three middle-school outsiders, to compete for a ten-thousand-dollar scholarship. The three kids must each solve three different riddles whose answers are located in Chicago. Skeptical, but with the help of their new—and totally unexpected—personal drivers, they dive in, crisscrossing the city and seeking out its attractions and secrets. They soon begin to wonder if the competition is real and realize that they can only prevail if they work together. A fun treasure hunt with a surprising twist ending. Especially enjoyable for readers who live in the Chicago area.
5. Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen: The Body under the Piano by Marthe Jocelyn
Luckily for Aggie Morton her mother can’t read her thoughts or the twelve-year-old would be in deep trouble. Aggie, inspired by Agatha Christie, and like the famous mystery author, lives in Torquay, England, and is fascinated by crime. After stumbling upon a dead body, Aggie enlists the help of her Belgian-refugee friend, Hector Perot, to track down the killer. Clever and resourceful, Aggie is also funny. The reader will delight in being privy to Aggie’s imagination—“The solitary girl sat like prey in the garden chair, unaware of the grisly doom lurking nearby.” This is a fun, engaging story.
Young Adult Detectives
6. Truly Devious (book #1) by Maureen Johnson
This is a mystery within a mystery with parallel plots in two time periods—the 1930s and the present day. The Ellingham Academy is a private boarding school in the mountains of Vermont founded by a man who believes learning should be a game. Students are admitted for their junior and senior years of high school if they have a passion for something—art, drama, writing, engineering...crime-solving. In 1936, the founder’s wife and three-year-old daughter are kidnapped, and a student goes missing. The only clue is a taunting riddle written in uneven letters cut from magazines and newspapers. The riddle is signed: Truly, Devious. The crimes are never solved. Decades later, Stevie Bell comes to Ellingham with her passion: to solve the most puzzling mystery in American criminal history. As Stevie finds her way—making friends and navigating living in a dorm with people different from anyone she’s ever met—the past repeats itself. The first student goes missing. Then the second. Death has returned to Ellingham. This book is un-put-downable. WARNING: Be sure you have books #2 and 3 on hand.
7. The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson
This book picks up where Truly Devious leaves off. After Stevie Bell solves a murder, her parents pull her out of school. She’s devastated to return home—away from her crime-solving passion, far from her friends, and separated from David, the boy she kissed and...well, she doesn’t know exactly what it is she has with David, but she really wants to find out! Presented with the chance to go back to Ellingham, Stevie makes a dangerous decision, risking her relationship with David, but the lure to return is too strong. She must go back. She hasn’t solved The Crime yet. At school, her advisor gives Stevie access to the attic where all the Ellingham family treasures are stored and arranges for her to do research with Professor Fenton at a nearby university. Stevie discovers this exciting new aspect of her project leads to yet another death.
8. The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson
Stevie Bell has solved the infamous Ellingham Academy murders. She knows who Truly Devious is. But before she can enjoy her success, there is another death. To make things worse for the teenage detective, David has disappeared. Stevie is sure the three deaths in 1936 and the three deaths this semester are connected and begins to wonder if she really solved the case after all. As Stevie expands her investigation, a massive blizzard hits Vermont and the students are evacuated. Naturally, Stevie and her friends decide to stay. Will she solve the case once and for all? Will she survive the storm? The Hand on the Wall is the final book in the Truly Devious case.
9. The Box in the Woods by Maureen Johnson
It’s summer vacation and Stevie Bell is home—without her friends, without David, without a case to investigate—until the owner of a summer camp invites her to go undercover as a camp counselor and solve a decades-old murder. She agrees as long as she can bring her friends. The Truly Devious cast of characters reunites to crack a cold case, as the small town devastated by the murder of four high school students closes ranks to hide a killer. Can Stevie discover the truth?