When I discovered that one of my favorite authors, Elly Griffiths, was writing a series of mysteries for nine to twelve-year-olds featuring a young sleuth named Justice Jones, a girl who's attending a boarding school on the Romney Marshes of England's south coast, I decided those nine to twelve-year-olds were not going to have all the fun. I quickly discovered that this children's series is every bit as good as the series Griffiths writes for adults.Â
The setting of the Romney Marshes reminds me of a favorite childhood Disney program starring Patrick McGoohan, Dr. Syn Alias the Scarecrow, and the landscape and its history of smuggling are perfect for this series. Justice Jones' father is a criminal lawyer, and her recently deceased mother wrote crime novels. With that sort of parentage, it's no wonder that this young girl has a mind like a steel trap. The boarding school with its Tudor Era cellars beneath a Victorian mansion is perfect for all sorts of late-night wanderings as Justice has midnight feasts with her classmates or tiptoes up to her friend Dorothy the maid's room in the attics.
Having the second-year girls perform good deeds each week in the local village is a perfect way to lead Justice straight into a mystery-- although there's already one in Highbury House itself. When our intrepid young sleuth learns that Mr. Arthur lives in Smuggler's Lodge, a former lighthouse that's supposedly haunted, she dismisses the idea immediately. After all, "in her experience, saying that a place is haunted is often a ruse to stop people going there."
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Adults as well as children will be kept entertained by Justice's investigations as she treks between Smuggler's Lodge and Highbury House to answer all the questions she writes down in her journal every night. Who killed Mr. Arthur, and why? Why didn't he have a military funeral? Why doesn't the new Matron at school know much about first aid? And will she ever get a real speaking role in one of the school plays?
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Although it makes me supremely happy that I was never sent to a 1930s English boarding school, Elly Griffiths' Justice Jones series is just plain fun, no matter your age. I highly recommend it.
The setting of the Romney Marshes reminds me of a favorite childhood Disney program starring Patrick McGoohan, Dr. Syn Alias the Scarecrow, and the landscape and its history of smuggling are perfect for this series. Justice Jones' father is a criminal lawyer, and her recently deceased mother wrote crime novels. With that sort of parentage, it's no wonder that this young girl has a mind like a steel trap. The boarding school with its Tudor Era cellars beneath a Victorian mansion is perfect for all sorts of late-night wanderings as Justice has midnight feasts with her classmates or tiptoes up to her friend Dorothy the maid's room in the attics.
Having the second-year girls perform good deeds each week in the local village is a perfect way to lead Justice straight into a mystery-- although there's already one in Highbury House itself. When our intrepid young sleuth learns that Mr. Arthur lives in Smuggler's Lodge, a former lighthouse that's supposedly haunted, she dismisses the idea immediately. After all, "in her experience, saying that a place is haunted is often a ruse to stop people going there."
Â
Adults as well as children will be kept entertained by Justice's investigations as she treks between Smuggler's Lodge and Highbury House to answer all the questions she writes down in her journal every night. Who killed Mr. Arthur, and why? Why didn't he have a military funeral? Why doesn't the new Matron at school know much about first aid? And will she ever get a real speaking role in one of the school plays?
Â
Although it makes me supremely happy that I was never sent to a 1930s English boarding school, Elly Griffiths' Justice Jones series is just plain fun, no matter your age. I highly recommend it.
