This series was indirectly recommended to me by my sister. Directly, it came to me via The Best Niece in Australia, as she asked me to read it for her. “Mum says I will like this one, but I’m not sure. Can you read it and let me know?”
Mum was right (and also needed a nap, after she rolled her eyes so hard that she sprained something). These are a delight, and just right for your precocious 8-12 year old reader.
Hazel & Daisy attend Deepdean, an English school for young ladies of a sort very familiar to those of us who grew up reading Enid Blyton. Hazel has been sent away to boarding school by her father in Hong Kong, and Daisy is a traditional English rose, daughter or an Earl or some such, who rules their year level with the kind of unthinking entitlement one tends to have, having never heard the word “no.” After four books, I may be ever so slightly Team Hazel.
In Murder Most Unladylike, Hazel stumbles across the body of a teacher, and she and Daisy form the Detective Society (Daisy is the president, naturally) to puzzle out who the murderer is. (Naturally, the body disappears, and the surrounding adults are no help.)
Over the course of the first four books, we follow Hazel and Daisy as they solve murders at home and abroad – including on the Orient Express! I hope Robin Stevens got to take a trip as “research.” Hazel slowly starts to grow into her self confidence book by book, while Daisy tends to remain as unchanging as the stone of her ancestral pile. There are some glimmers of self awareness starting to peek out in book four, so I have confidence that she too will start to grow up a little bit.
Each setting is distinct and well realised, while Hazel and Daisy are clearly provoking some pretty strong feelings in even the adult reader (my thumbnail for the Best Niece in Australis: you will love this, and want to smack Daisy). I’m not going to spoil any plots by going into detail here – they’re all tightly-plotted little murder mysteries, mostly of the locked door/bottle variety – but the series is enthusiastically recommended. They’re a flashback to all those Famous Five mysteries, but written from an updated perspective, so without the “oooh, that didn’t age well” wince that you get from rereading.