Murder Most Unladylike 7 – Death in the Spotlight

Robin Stevens' Death in the Spotlight is a backstage murder mystery for 11 year olds, and the seventh case for schoolgirl detectives Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong.

What happens

Hazel tells it, as she always does, and she starts right in the middle. They're sitting in the dusty stalls of a London theatre while a policeman stomps about the stage telling everyone not to move. There's been a death. Then she goes back and explains how they got there.

They've just come home from Hong Kong, where Hazel's grandfather died. Daisy's Uncle Felix has a secret job and wants the girls kept well away from any more crime. So Aunt Lucy finds them somewhere safe to spend a few weeks. The Rue Theatre, which is putting on Romeo and Juliet and is short of actors.

Daisy is THRILLED. Hazel would honestly rather do almost anything else.

The auditions are a joy. Hazel panics, forgets her speech and blurts out a poem she learned when she was little. Daisy throws herself into Juliet's death scene so dramatically that the theatre's owner calls it "wonderfully tasteless". Daisy gets two parts. Hazel gets a servant called Potpan, and to her horror he has lines.

Then there's the company. Rose, the glamorous young Juliet, is the star, and several of the cast can't stand her. Martita, who plays the Nurse, is furious about having to share a dressing room with two schoolgirls. Romeo is played by a man Daisy decides straight away is horrid. Even Hazel starts to wonder whether everyone at the Rue is as nice as they seem.

What makes these books so special is Hazel. She's clever, anxious and very honest. She notices everything, including how it feels to be the one who looks different in England, and she says so. And she eats a lot of cake.

The backstage world is brilliant too. There are secret corners everywhere, a lift that doesn't work, gas-lit dressing rooms and even an old well in the basement.

It's a murder mystery, so there is a body, and Hazel admits herself that dead bodies are her least favourite part of detecting. The opening chapters are all nerves, squabbles and secrets rather than anything gruesome, but this is the top of the shelf rather than the bottom.

What to read next

It's the seventh case, so it's much more fun if your reader already knows the pair. If they're new to Daisy and Hazel, go back to Murder Most Unladylike, where the Detective Society began at their boarding school and Hazel found her very first body.