"THE SCANDALOUS SISTERHOOD OF PRICKWILLOW PLACE," by Julie Berry, Roaring Brook Press, $15.99, 351 pages (f) (ages 10-14)
When seven girls at a Victorian England finishing school watch their headmistress and her brother die while at the dinner table, they don’t want St. Etheldreda’s School for Young Ladies on Prickwillow Road to close.
They do what they can to continue the school, keeping up pretenses that all is well, such as embroidering the tablecloth for an upcoming social, along with investigating the murders, in author Julie Berry’s mystery for middle-grade readers “The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place.”
What ensues is an entertaining whodunit story with the girls, each with her own quirks that had her sent off to finishing school, employing their skills or talents, sometimes with objections, to help with the ruse.
The first obstacle is that after dinner, their stern headmistress, Constance Plackett, had planned a surprise party for her younger brother, Aldous Godding, and guests, from the town gossip to the doctor, begin to arrive not long after the deaths.
Smooth Kitty Heaton takes charge with the plan to hide the bodies and continue as usual as the youngest of the girls, Pocked Louise Dudley, with her unfashionable interest in medicine and science, keeps careful track of clues and figures out it was poison that killed their headmistress and her brother.
It’s almost a game of Clue where the girls are pretending they aren’t playing at all as they go through the almost-comical twists and turns while trying to figure out what happened. If discovered, their burying the bodies in the backyard, impersonating the headmistress and forging her handwriting, among other things, would be a scandal the community wouldn’t soon forget.
With such a broad cast of characters — seven girls, the headmistress, her brother, other relatives, the constable, the doctor, neighbors, love interests for a few of the girls, among others — Berry uses nicknames to help keep the girls straight and enough descriptions and distinctive character traits to keep the others clear, too.
Despite the serious nature of this being a murder mystery, Berry keeps the tone light and the girls, even Dour Elinour, likable, while also showing that investigating a crime in the 1890s was much different from it is in the host of contemporary television dramas.
The language is clean and the romance is kept within Victorian-era standards. Although there are deaths and burglaries, they are not detailed and are described in an age-appropriate way.
If you go ...
What: Julie Berry book signing
When: Wednesday, Oct. 15, 6 p.m.
Where: The King's English, 1511 S. 1500 East, Salt Lake City
Web: kingsenglish.com, julieberrybooks.com/events
Note: Places in the signing line are reserved for those who purchase a copy of the featured book from The King's English.
Email: rappleye@deseretnews.com Twitter: CTRappleye