…just that you can skip them and probably be no worse off. But for pity’s sake, you never heard anyone say, “What England really needs is more stupid girls.”

Which is not to say that those hundred pages are without merit…ĭidn’t want me to be clever and inquisitive? I realize that intelligence wasn’t a highly regarded trait in the females of my species. And what’s doubly weird is Bunce’s own lack of confidence in establishing a milieu that’s already so over-familiar: sure, it’s interesting that Myrtle’s governess, Ada Judson, is from French Guiana, but even after we’ve observed the relationship between these two - Miss Judson being a firm encourager of Myrtle’s proclivities - the narrative is still weirdly stopped short for a page so that she can be “introduced” and we can be explicitly told most of what we’ve figured out anyway.

Those first hundred or so pages are hard going, since at no point does Bunce’s world establish itself as in any way different to exactly what you’d expect. ✔ Possessed of a remarkably early-21st Century attitude ✔ Frequently ignored by those who think they know better ✔ Nevertheless accompanied by an enabling adult presence ✔ Largely ignored by a disapproving parent It is 1893 - in the book, I mean, don’t panic - there are sixty-six elements in the periodic table, and Myrtle is frankly difficult to separate out from the countless other Young Person Detectives since she hits just about every trope going: Thankfully the unproved murder on which the entire book to that point has hung is finally suspected a few pages later and the book comes to life at last, but there’s an uncomfortably meta air to the criticism at the time. Bunce’s Premeditated Myrtle (2020) we learn that 12 year-old Myrtle Hardcastle starts reading novels in the middle because “beginnings were often boring”.

With stakes this high, sleuthing puts Myrtle, her family, and the patients and staff of the hospital all In Myrtle Peril.On page 110 of 355 of Elizabeth C. Hardcastle incapacitated and possibly delusional, Myrtle must step into the breach, and find the murder victim and the real Miss Snowcroft before the killer comes after her father. Hardcastle’s investigation takes a detour when he’s hospitalized for a tonsillectomy-and then witnesses a murder. Is she truly Ethel Snowcroft, believed to be lost at sea with her parents, or is she a con artist chasing a windfall? Myrtle is enthralled by the case, but Mr. When a mysterious girl attempts to stake her claim to the Snowcroft family fortune, Myrtle Hardcastle’s father, a lawyer, is asked to help prove-or disprove-the girl’s identity. An Edgar® Award-Winning Series Myrtle Hardcastle-twelve-year-old Victorian Amateur Detective-returns to investigate the case of a missing heiress lost at sea, an inquiry that runs aground when a murder in plain sight has no apparent victim.

Myrtle hardcastle mysteries