The Common Criminals’ Club: Death Before Detention

A witty and charming addition to the growing canon of cosy middle grade crime.

The story opens with Mae writing in her logbook about the extraordinary turn of events that unfold one term at her tiny rural boarding school in Ireland. Mae and her three friends Shonda, Aoife and Beck have set up a secret club, the Common Criminals club where they do nothing more daring than watch illicit Netflix movies and eat sweets and biscuits. 

The school is run by two eccentric nuns and a motley assortment of teachers in a somewhat laissez faire manner, although there are rules which Mae always seems to break and then receive detentions for.   The girls love their school despite the dilapidated state of the building as it feels like a safe haven from some of their tricky family situations. All that is shattered one day when Mae is asked to fetch some butter from the fridge for the biscuits their class are making and a dead body topples out of the fridge on top of her.   It transpires that two of her friends also spotted a body the evening before. But how did the body get into the fridge?   The Guarda are called in but prove incompetent in their investigations and then when the principal nun is found dead the next day, Mae and her club decide they will have to solve the mystery themselves.

The murdered man turns out to be Conor Haddock whose father built the school but he wants to sell the building. The principal is trying to protect the school from closure.  Could this be a strong enough motive?  As Mae and her friends snoop around uncovering more secrets, they realise that almost everyone could have a motive for murder.

There is plenty of peril and danger but it is dealt with a light touch and plenty of humour. The girls’ friendship is tested to the brink as suspicion and lies abound but in the process of finding out whodunnit Mae gains some valuable insights about her friends and herself.

Fans of the Murder Most Unladylike Mysteries will enjoy this.