Underground Escapade: A Peter and Millie Adventure

Sam Bartram's Underground Escapade, the second Peter and Millie Adventure, is a fast, funny story for 10 year olds about two friends in London for a medal, and a criminal who's just been broken out of prison.

What happens

Peter and Millie are thirteen, and they're at Buckingham Palace to receive the George Medal from the Queen. On Millie's Scottish island of Orsk, they helped bring down a smuggling gang.

It doesn't go smoothly. Millie is so nervous she calls the Queen 'jam' and faints (nearly squashing a corgi). Within minutes the video has gone viral!

Then the news comes on in the curry house. Derek Mooney, the man behind the gang, has escaped from a prison van. The police promise he'll be nowhere near London. Peter has a big relay final at Crystal Palace the next day, so the plan is to run and then go straight home.

Of course, it isn't that simple. Peter thinks he spots a familiar face in the crowd.

Peter tells it himself, and he's chatty and a little bit full of himself (in a nice way). He's always stopping to tell you something about his dad's timekeeping or the worst hotel bed in London. Millie is brilliant. Loud, fierce, very Scottish ('This isnae a bad place!') and completely herself, even in the National Gallery.

The athletics is a real highlight. The relay is written with so much energy that your reader will be holding their breath on every leg.

There's a sweet thread about friendship too. Peter gets oddly jealous when his teammate Du'ane flirts with Millie, and he can't quite work out why.

It's worth being aware that this book refers back to the first Peter and Millie adventure a lot. Peter's best friend Finny has died, Millie was once kidnapped, and there was a plane crash. The escaped criminal has convictions for murder and kidnapping. It's all told lightly, but it's there.

What to read next

If the London setting is the appeal, The Secret of Platform 13 has a secret door under King's Cross station that opens for just nine days every nine years.