The Secret Detectives by Ella Risbridger review by Lynda Waterhouse

 

The most striking thing for me about this middle grade murder mystery are the three main eleven year old characters at its core; Isobel Petty, Letitia Hartington-Davis and Sameer (Sam) Khan. The novel springs to life as they talk, squabble and try to make sense of the adult world around them.

 After witnessing a murder on board the S.S Marianna they become the Secret Detectives. To solve the crime they have to investigate the lives of the small group of adults who are aboard this mail-ship travelling from India to England in 1892. But they also have to learn about each other. Their friendship is complicated and messy. There is jealousy and misunderstandings aplenty but they are always there for each other when it counts.

Isobel Petty is an orphan who has lived all her life in India, inspired by the character of Mary Lennox in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic novel, The Secret Garden. Isobel struggles to understand people, ‘They followed rules that Isobel had never been taught; as if they all knew the steps to a dance for which Isobel had never even heard the tune.’ Isobel is a noticing kind of a child who writes everything down in a notebook in order to better understand the world around her.  She dislikes Letitia from the very first moment she meets her but comes to the realisation that Leticia is a ‘noticer’ too. With some mediation from Sam, Isobel slowly builds a relationship with her.

Letitia is leaving India and her father behind to attend a boarding school in England. Her six year old brother Horace is on the journey too. She is the blond haired, blue eyed, well-dressed ‘pretty one’. She knows how to behave and is always clean and well-presented. She is also good at heists, breaking and entering and tugging on heart strings to dig out information.

Sam Khan is obsessed with Sherlock Holmes and is magniloquent, using large words. His father is Dr Khan an eminent Indian doctor with royal connections who is travelling to share his knowledge of public health and hygiene to save lives. Sam’s mother was English and she died when he was very young.  When challenged about his identity by Leticia he is clear and firm that he is ‘completely both Indian and English.’

 The story reflects the nineteenth century attitudes towards race, class and colonialism. Our three Secret Detectives challenge these ideas as they grow together, ‘We’re an agency. We’re a team. We’re your people.’

ISBN978-178800-600-2

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