Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew 34 – Cupcake Chaos

Carolyn Keene's Cupcake Chaos is a Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew mystery for 8 year olds that begins with a grand opening and ends up crawling with ladybugs.

What happens

It's the first week of spring in River Heights and a new cupcake café is opening on Main Street. The Lucky Ladybug is run by twin sisters from a TV show called Cupcake Crusaders, so they're practically famous.

Better still, George's mum is keeping their spare cupcakes in her fridge overnight. No sneak tastes allowed. Just sneak peeks (poor Bess really wants a taste).

That evening, Nancy finds a creamy green cupcake on her doorstep with a note tucked in the top. It warns her never to eat at the café. Bess and George get one too!

Then on opening day, just as the girls finally reach the counter, the screaming starts. Live ladybugs are crawling over everything, cupcakes included, hundreds of them, while a news crew films the whole thing.

In the garden out the back, Nancy finds an empty jar. The label says it held five hundred live ladybugs. So this wasn't an accident. Somebody wanted the café to fail.

There are lots of suspects. Olivia, the self-crowned cupcake queen of Main Street, who's worried nobody will buy her cupcakes any more. Buggy Wozniak, president of the Bug Club, who stormed off when the sisters said no to his poster. And Deirdre, snapping photos for her gossipy blog as usual.

The best bits are the funny little tests. Chocolate Chip the puppy drags them straight to a suspect by following her nose. George drops Bess's ladybug earring on a table to find out whether Lester is really scared of bugs. (He is. VERY.)

Nancy is eight here, and it's a proper whodunnit for younger detectives. There's a suspect list typed up on the computer, an empty jar tucked into Nancy's bag as evidence, and a crime that's all about ruined cupcakes.

If you've got a reader who loves baking shows as much as mysteries, this one's a treat. You'll find it at number 34 of the Clue Crew books.

What to read next

If they fancy more cooking with their cases, Cooking Camp Disaster sends Nancy, Bess and George off to a summer cooking camp, where Bess is hoping they'll learn to make cupcakes.