Mystery and Thriller

Mystery genre

Nathan Fox: Dangerous Times

Sir Francis Walsingham, England’s spymaster general, has eyes and ears all over the world. His secret service protects Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth—and ensures the might of all of England. Now he has a new recruit. Fourteen-year-old Nathan Fox is an actor in the same company as young Will Shakespeare. His life in the theater has taught him a thing or two about disguises and deception. But nothing can prepare Nathan for the shadowy world he’s about to enter now. Nathan is trained in swordplay and street fighting, code breaking and escapes. Then he’s paired with fearless spy John Pearce for his first mission: a journey to Venice to forge an alliance against the powerful King of Spain. Posing as master and servant, Nathan and Pearce move smoothly through Venetian society… until they cross paths with the great General Othello. Soon they become entangled in his tragic love affair with a young noblewoman, Desdemona. Nathan’s new life holds more action and more drama than he ever saw on a stage. But will he ever survive to tell Will Shakespeare this tale?

The Running Man

For a long time, fourteen-year-old Joseph has wondered about old Tom Leyton, his reclusive next-door neighbor. Gossip and rumors suggest that something terrible happened to Tom in the past. Then Joseph is asked to draw Tom for a school art project, and that means Joseph has the opportunity to uncover the truth about this man who passes his days tending silkworms and keeping dark secrets. As Joseph learns more and more about Tom’s world, he is forced to confront his own fears.

The Black Book of Secrets

A boy arrives at a remote village in the dead of night. His name is Ludlow Fitch—and he is running from a most terrible past. In this village is the life he has dreamed of—a safe place to live, and a job as the assistant to a mysterious pawnbroker who trades people’s deepest, darkest secrets for cash. Ludlow’s job is to neatly transcribe the confessions in an ancient leather-bound tome: The Black Book of Secrets. Ludlow yearns to trust his mentor, who refuses to disclose any information on his past experiences or future intentions. What the pawnbroker does not know is, in a town brimming with secrets, the most troubling may be held by his new apprentice.

Death in the Air: The Boy Sherlock Holmes, His Second Case

After the harrowing experience of losing his mother while solving a brutal murder in London’s East End, young Sherlock Holmes commits himself to fighting crime … and is soon involved in another case. While visiting his father at the magnificent Crystal Palace, Sherlock stops to watch a remarkable and dangerous trapeze performance high above, framed by the stunning glass ceiling of the legendary building. Suddenly, the troupe’s star is dropping, screaming and flailing, toward the floor. He lands with a sickening thud just a few feet away, and rolls up almost onto the boy’s boots. Unconscious and bleeding profusely, his body is grotesquely twisted. In the mayhem that follows, Sherlock notices something that no one else sees — something is amiss with the trapeze bar! He knows that foul play is afoot. What he doesn’t know is that his discovery will put him on a frightening, twisted trail that leads to an entire gang of notorious criminals. Wrapped in the fascinating world of Victorian entertainment, its dangerous performances, and London’s dark underworld, Death in the Air raises The Boy Sherlock Holmes to a whole new level.Be sure not to miss Eye of the Crow, The Boy Sherlock Holmes, His First Case.

Double or Die: A James Bond Adventure

James Bond is no ordinary boy. In a north London cemetery, a professor is kidnapped at gunpoint. Then, a suspicious letter crammed with cryptic clues arrives at Eton. To decipher the deadly mystery, James Bond must take a series of dangerous gambles. Once the code is cracked he has just forty-eight hours to save the professor from the dark forces that threaten to destroy them both. And if they can’t escape, it’s not only their future under threat.

Griffin’s Castle

Lonely and friendless from constantly moving, Dinah finds herself wishing the animal statues protecting a nearby Welsh castle would keep her company. Suddenly, to Dinah’s delight, the stone animals start to magically spring from the walls and follow her home. But when the animals refuse to let Dinah leave her house, she quickly realizes that these mysterious creatures aren’t rescuing her, they’re imprisoning her.

The London Eye Mystery

Ted and Kat watched their cousin Salim board the London Eye. But after half an hour it landed and everyone trooped off–except Salim. Where could he have gone? How on earth could he have disappeared into thin air? Ted and his older sister, Kat, become sleuthing partners, since the police are having no luck. Despite their prickly relationship, they overcome their differences to follow a trail of clues across London in a desperate bid to find their cousin. And ultimately it comes down to Ted, whose brain works in its own very unique way, to find the key to the mystery. This is an unput-downable spine-tingling thriller–a race against time.

Canned

Fergal Bamfield doesn’t collect stamps like normal kids. He’s an oddball (his mother prefers to call him “clever”), and his collection is as strange as everything else about him. Fergal Bamfield collects tin cans. Then one day he finds a can without a label. What could be in it? Peaches, soup, perhaps revolting spam? But instead it’s something gruesome: a human finger. Then Fergal finds another can, this time containing a one-word message, HELP! Now Fergal and his friend Charlotte are knee-deep in an adventure, and they’re about to learn something horrible: Everybody has an expiration date.

The Traitors’ Gate

When his father is arrested as a debtor in 1849 London, fourteen-year-old John Huffman must take on unexpected responsibilities, from asking a distant relative for help to determining why people are spying on him and his family.