Katherine Woodfine’s The Midnight Peacock is a mystery for 9 year olds that opens with footsteps in the empty wing of a snowbound house.<\/p>\n
Tilly is a housemaid at Winter Hall and she does not believe in ghosts. She says so loudly, in front of everyone, which is how she ends up walking down the dark east corridor alone with a single candle to prove her point.<\/p>\n
Something comes along the passage towards her. Then the candle goes out.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile in London, Mr Sinclair is telling a room full of journalists about a New Year’s Eve ball at his department store. A new perfume called Midnight Peacock. Fireworks over Piccadilly. Possibly, if the rumours are anything to go by, the King.<\/p>\n
Two floors above that press conference, Sophie Taylor and Lil Rose are running a detective agency. They are going to Winter Hall for Christmas. You can probably guess how restful that turns out to be.<\/p>\n
It reads like a proper old-fashioned puzzle box. Snow, a grand house with a wing nobody uses, servants who know more than they let on, and a party with far too many guests at it. The Edwardian detail is gorgeous and never slows things down, all cinnamon and tinsel and shop windows full of silver stars.<\/p>\n
Here is the thing to know before you start. This is the last of the Sinclair’s Mysteries and it reads like it. A great deal of what Sophie carries around happened in the earlier books. Her father is dead. The man responsible told her so to her face, in an alley, and left her with a scar on her forehead that she keeps touching without meaning to.<\/p>\n
None of that happens on the page here. It is all behind her, remembered and brooded over, which is quietly devastating if your reader knows the story and fairly baffling if they do not.<\/p>\n
So this is not the one to start with. On its own it still works as a ghost-and-a-ball mystery, but half the weight lands somewhere your reader has not been.<\/p>\n
The other thing is that first chapter. It is properly frightening and entirely on purpose. A girl alone, a tall shadow stretching along a wall towards her, a bitter cold wind and then darkness and a scream. It runs to four pages and it is very well done, and a child who lies awake after that sort of thing will lie awake.<\/p>\n
Everyone else gets exactly the right sort of shiver, and the book warms up fast afterwards.<\/p>\n
Far better to go back to the start. The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow has Sophie arriving at Sinclair’s as a shop girl the week before the doors open, on her own in London, with no idea yet that she is any good at this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Katherine Woodfine’s The Midnight Peacock is a mystery for 9 year olds that opens with footsteps in the empty wing of a snowbound house. Tilly is a housemaid at Winter Hall and she does not believe in ghosts. She says so loudly, in front of everyone, which is how she ends up walking down the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11124,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9268,"lr_next_read_anchor":"The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow","lr_seo_hook":"A snowbound house party, a ghost in the east wing and two girl detectives."},"book_tag":[25],"age_group":[24],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[553],"class_list":["post-9240","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-friendship-books","age_group-books-for-9-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-katherine-woodfine"],"yoast_title":"The Midnight Peacock by Katherine Woodfine | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A snowbound house party, a ghost in the east wing and two girl detectives. For ages 9+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n