South by South East

Anthony Horowitz's South by South East is a spy caper for 9 year olds where the world's worst detective gets signed up by MI6.

What happens

Nick Diamond still lives with his big brother Tim, who calls himself a private detective. (He really isn't much of one.) They've moved the office to Camden Town, the phone's been cut off and today's lunch is half a carton of milk.

Then a man with a gun knocks on the door. He's an agent called Jake McGuffin and somebody is shooting at him through the window.

McGuffin is chasing a killer called Charon, a master of disguise with only nine fingers. Charon plans to kill a Russian diplomat, and McGuffin badly needs a phone. The Diamonds haven't got one.

That's the start of a VERY bad week. McGuffin's last words are the ones in the title, and Tim only half hears them because a train rumbles overhead at exactly the wrong moment.

Before long the brothers have been driven off in a locked taxi, drugged with a glowing green drink and told they're secret agents now. When they bring Chief Inspector Snape back to the building, it's turned into a bird shop (parrot and all). Snape once fired Tim from the police, so he isn't inclined to believe a word.

The jokes come thick and fast. Nick tells the story and he has a comeback for everything. Tim doesn't even notice a bullet whizz past his client's face (and he can't get the poor man's name right either). If your reader likes spotting the danger while the grown-up in charge is looking the wrong way, Nick is their kind of narrator.

Can a detective who faints at the sight of a body really catch an assassin? That's what keeps the pages turning.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

A man is shot early on and dies in Tim's arms, with blood down the coat he's only just borrowed. Guns get pointed at the brothers more than once, and Snape's sidekick Boyle would very much like to hit them.

Nothing is gory and it's all played for laughs. Still, a child who's upset by death in a story, even a jokey one, might want something gentler. For a reader who already enjoys a crime story with a body in it, it's a total romp.

What to read next

It's the third Diamond Brothers book, and it fills new readers in on the brothers as it goes. If your reader would like to see where the pair started out, try The Falcon's Malteser, where a very jumpy stranger leaves a package at the office and pays them to keep it safe.