London is melting under an oppressive heatwave. Nik & Norva live in the Tri, a high-rise building where their father is the caretaker. When one of the residents, Hugo, is found murdered, Nik & Norva are on the case. They loved Hugo, he taught an art class in the common area of the Tri and always had interesting information about the Tri and surrounding community. It's summer, so Nik & Norva have a lot of time on their hands to devote to the case, to the annoyance of the local residents and police. However, for the most part, the police aren't trusted in the Tri. This gives the detective duo more access to conduct their thorough and (sometimes) reckless research into who committed the horrible crime. As the suspect list mounts, Nik & Norva find themselves in a race against time to find the killer before their lives are turned completely upside down. High Rise Mystery is an amazing new series by author Sharna Jackson. I loved following Nik & Norva's adventure through the Tri as they unwraveled the crime. They are smart, curious, stubborn and not against bending a few rules to get the job done. They are the perfect team to solve the case and I'm excited to know that they will be back with new stories and new cases to solve in the future. The supporting characters in High Rise Mystery are just as strong. Nik & Norva's friend George is hilarious and more clever than he lets on. Mark is a potential love interest but also a suspect. Nik & Norva also don't like the way Jane has been acting, in fact, everyone in the building is a suspect. Good thing they are organised and ready to take on whatever is thrown at them. It's funny, smart and a great who-dunnit that should not be missed. Sharna recently spoke to the BBC on the importance of young readers seeing their lives, their cultures, religions, backgrounds and communities reflected in the books that they read. You can read the article here. It also references a new report published by BookTrust, the UK's largest reading charity. The report states that "over the pas 11 years, fewer than 2% of all authors and/or illustrators of children's books published in the UK were British people of colour." This is why BookTrust has launched #BookTrustRepresents, a campaign to promote and support these authors who are severely underrepresented in the UK.
1 Comment
Lynda Hunter
4/29/2019 12:02:40 am
Fabulous book for so many reasons. I am a retired primary teacher nowadays and was also a head teacher. This book would have been like manna from heaven when I was leading a primary school out in the" middle class white sticks" where there was a sad and depressing contrast between the children's understanding of city life with children from my previous city based school. My own 3 grandchildren absolutely loved this book and so did I. Fast paced, clever and witty, with great characterisation and a real unexpected twist at the end!
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