New Book Announcement: Once Upon a Crime is coming in 2021!

Ever since Mistletoe and Murder published in 2016, fans have been asking me whether I was ever going to write a story about Uncle Felix and Aunt Lucy’s wedding. And ever since Death Sets Sail published in August, fans have been asking me whether that book really was the end for the Detective Society, or whether I might return to Hazel and Daisy’s world with short stories about them to bridge the gap between Death Sets Sail and my new series set during WW2, The Ministry of Unladylike Activity.

I haven’t been able to answer either of those questions … until today, when I can finally reveal that, even though the first book in The Ministry of Unladylike Activity series won’t publish until 2022, I have a brand-new book of short stories about the Detective Society and their friends publishing in August 2021!

Once Upon a Crime is a mix of old favourites and new stories. It collects up The Case of the Missing Treasure and The Case of the Drowned Pearl for readers who haven’t been able to get hold of them yet (Pearl, in particular, hasn’t been available outside the UK and Ireland, and I know that readers in Australia, New Zealand and America have been desperate to read it – so here it is for you at last!).

You’ll also find four stories that haven’t ever been published before. There’s The Case of the Uninvited Guest, the account of exactly what happened at Uncle Felix and Aunt Lucy’s wedding. I actually first wrote this story in 2017 – and I’m very excited that you’ll finally get to read it!

Then there’s The Case of the Second Scream, a story that I also plotted way back in 2017 but never wrote out in full until this year. A few of you may have played through the online quiz based on it, when A Spoonful of Murder first published, but I liked it so much that I thought it should be properly told – and it now comes with a brand new beginning and ending that you definitely don’t want to miss if you’re wondering what happened to your favourite detectives after Death Sets Sail …

George and Alexander get their very own story in The Hound of Weston School, with a plot inspired by my favourite Sherlock Holmes story, The Hound of the Baskervilles. I wrote this story in the middle of the first UK lockdown, in spring this year, just a few weeks before we got our little hound, Howl …

And finally, if you want to hear more from May Wong before she appears as one of the three main characters in The Ministry of Unladylike Activity in 2022, you’ll get your chance in May Wong and the Deadly Flat. It’s 1939 and Britain has just declared war on Germany … and May is convinced that she’s discovered a murder in Uncle Felix and Aunt Lucy’s block of flats …

I’m really proud of these stories, and so excited for you to read them. You can pre-order Once Upon a Crime now from Amazon, Blackwell’s, Eason or Waterstones – or direct from your local independent bookstore!

We’ll have more announcements early next year about the cover colour, and the final cover – as always, it’s going to be illustrated by Nina Tara – so stay tuned for that. But please do start sharing your excitement here – I’m so pleased to finally be able to tell you that I will have a new book for you next year after all!