Murder at Twilight

Fleur Hitchcock's Murder at Twilight is a gripping country-estate mystery for 11 year olds that begins with a nosebleed in the back of a car and ends the day with police lights in the courtyard.

What happens

Viv Lin lives with her mum in a little flat above the old stables on the Blackwater Estate. Her mum used to be nanny to Noah, the boy in the big house. She still drives him to school and buys his clothes.

Noah is a viscount, the only heir, and Viv can't stand him. One morning's row over who gets the front seat ends with Viv's hand connecting with his nose. There's blood everywhere. Noah texts her "I'll get you later".

Then Noah doesn't come out of school. By the time Viv gets home the courtyard is full of police cars, people in white suits searching the car, and her mum is being questioned. And the police take Viv's phone, with that text still on it.

It's told by Viv, in the present tense, and she's brilliant company. She's clever and furious and funny, with big plans to be an architect and build affordable houses. She's also very honest about the ugly bits. She says she'd laugh if Noah disappeared. Then he does.

What I loved is how the estate feels. Frozen fields at night, the gamekeeper's bonfire, a dump in a wood the children called Dead Things Wood. You feel how everyone there lives in houses the family owns, and how that shapes who gets suspected.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The title isn't joking, and this reads right at the top of the shelf. Viv punches Noah twice and calls him an "inbred pig", there's a bit of "damn" and "hell", and a missing boy with a frantic mother is the heart of it. Her own mum is suspected too, which is hard to read.

If your reader still finds thrillers too tense, it might be one to save. If your reader loves a mystery where the detective has real feelings (and a temper), this is a cracker.

What to read next

For another Fleur Hitchcock mystery, Murder in Midwinter starts with Maya on a London bus just before Christmas, photographing a man with a gun.