Name: Poison Is Not Polite
ISBN: 9781481422161

Robin Stevens

In 1930s England, schoolgirl detectives Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are at Daisy's home for the holidays when someone falls seriously, mysteriously ill at a family party, but no one present is what they seem--and everyone has a secret or two--so the Detective Society must do everything they can to reveal the truth ... no matter the consequences.

Poison Is Not Polite

In 1930s England, schoolgirl detectives Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are at Daisy's home for the holidays when someone falls seriously, mysteriously ill at a family party, but no one present is what they seem--and everyone has a secret or two--so the Detective Society must do everything they can to reveal the truth . . . no matter the consequences.

lauren

4.2/5 
everyone should give children’s mystery books a try. they are so delightful.

Kim Tyo-Dickerson

Completely satisfying mystery and cracking follow-up to the British boarding school story setting of Deepdean in the first instalment of the Wells and Wong Mysteries. This second outing of The Detective Society sees Hongkonger Hazel Wong newly promoted to Vice President in addition to her role as Secretary after helping solve their first mystery. The new adventure begins when Hazel is invited to spend a long weekend at the country estate of her best friend and society President Daisy Wells to celebrate Daisy's fourteenth birthday with her parents and guests. Fallingford, Daisy's ancestral home, is a faded British country seat and in grand fashion, one by one a claustrophobic cast of characters assemble, a constellation of aristocrats, family members, a new governess, school chums, and beautiful yet sinister guests with secret reasons for being there. Miss Marple inspired for sure. 

The birthday weekend gets off to a creepy start with the unexpected and quickly deemed unwelcome arrival of an elegant, handsome stranger named Mr. Denis Curtis who is apparently a new and inappropriately intimate friend of Daisy's glamorous mother Lady Hastings. Daisy's father, Lord Hastings, a red-faced country squire type who tells horrible jokes and who is often covered in mud and crumbs, watches his wife's and Mr. Curtis' antics rather hopelessly. Two more of Daisy's school friends from Deepdean, Kitty and Beanie, arrive to round our Daisy's school group along with her annoying older brother Bertie and his friend from school Stephen, but before long there is sleuthing going on surrounding Mr. Curtis and his eyeing of the family antiques, particularly as he continues to declare that most of them are not worth anything and that he could take them off the familys' hands for them for a few pounds. Nothing would make Daisy more disgusted and suspicious than that, and so watching Mr. Curtis becomes the number one goal as preparations for the opulent Children's Tea for Daisy's birthday get underway. The girls also try to figure out what is up with Daisy's Uncle Felix, who is watching his sister Lady Hastings with peculiar vigilance, acting oddly in general and, most distressingly, not listening to or treating Daisy like the favorite niece that she normally is. And what is up with the strangely impersonal yet kind of brilliant governess Miss Alston who won't go anywhere without her large, brown handbag? 

Deeply disturbing events quickly unfold as a rainstorm settles into the landscape and floods the estate's surroundings, effectively cutting the house off from the rest of the world. Passions run high, secrets are revealed, and a plot of revenge and deadly desperation is unleashed , making Hazel long for the burnt porridge, scratchy blankets, and dull routines of Deepdean School.

Poison Is Not Polite

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