15th December 2024

This book has been calling out to me from shops for some years now, and I finally picked it up somewhere to read. I know it’s intended for children, but the title feels very enticing, and I wondered what I was missing out on.

It’s both the classic boarding school set up, and yet with a modern lens of realism, encompassing (at an appropriate level for the target audience) bullying, racism, sexuality, and as the title gives away, murder.

I found it quite refreshing how it brought the setting up to date (despite being set in the 1930s) and used a main character from Hong Kong to allow us as readers to see this world from her point of view, rather than a traditional one.

The plot is pretty solid as mystery stories go, with lots of clues, red herrings, various things going on, and lots of suspects to deal with. AS an adult reader though, it does seem a bit chaotic in places - although I suspect this is intended to be for comic reasons.

I didn’t really find myself engaging much with the narrative though. The pacing felt sporadic to me, and I never particularly got into the flow of the storytelling. While I’m glad I’ve finally read this, I don’t find myself motivated to ever worry about the sequels.

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