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Fleur Hitchcock's The Fire Bay Adventure is a fast seaside mystery for 9 year olds about four cousins, a village bonfire and a run of fires nobody can explain.
Ava, Josh, Aiden and Chloe are staying at their grandparents' farm above Drake's Bay for the yearly Fire Festival. There's a massive bonfire on the beach and flaming tar barrels carried through the village on people's heads (and a very cross Josh, who's eight and definitely not allowed to carry one).
On their first night the post office goes up in flames. Then Aiden hears glass smashing down by the harbour and finds a family trapped upstairs in a burning building. His rescue, with a pile of lobster pots and a fishing net, is brilliant and very tense.
Two fires in one night is weird. Chloe starts to wonder about the man in the market selling virtual-reality headsets from a famous brand for fifteen pounds. Isn't that suspiciously cheap?
It's lovely how the four of them work as a team. Josh keeps notes on suspects in his red notebook (one of them is "mushroom-head"). Aiden goes bright red whenever anyone calls him a hero. Ava is desperate to carry a barrel. Chloe is the one who joins the dots.
The story swaps between the cousins, so you get a bit of each of them. It's properly funny too. Grandma buys a phone from a dodgy stall while the children are trying to keep the seller from getting away.
Ava and Josh jump into the back of a stranger's van to stop it leaving, and end up being driven off into the countryside. It's played as an adventure and they keep their heads. But it's the sort of thing you might want to chat about afterwards! The fires are frightening too, though the family Aiden helps all get out.
If your reader loves the idea of a holiday with no curfew, a dog called Bella and a mystery to crack, this is a great one.
For more of the same cousins, try The Thorn Island Adventure. This time it's summer, a fisherman's brand-new boat has vanished from a cove, and Josh is already sitting on a wall with his notebook, waiting for a crime.
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