Detective stories

This pacey illustrated chapter book for confident young readers highlights the importance of friendship and remaining true to yourself. With brainteasers to solve throughout, it will particularly appeal to those with an interest in maths, puzzles and codes.

Loosely based on the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, this sharp and witty comic is a great introduction for youngsters into the world of Sherlock and Watson. Readers also see Sherlock navigating daily school life and the challenges of making friends.

Ottoline is good at solving mysteries, in part due to her eavesdropping habit and in part because of her qualification as a mistress of disguise.

Meet Enid Blyton’s most famous characters – Julian, Dick, Anne, George and of course the ever-loyal Timmy the dog – for the first time in this, the first book in the classic Famous Five series.

Sally Jones is an engineer and loyal friend to Captain Koskela. She’s also an ape. When Koskela is falsely accused of murder, she’s the one who must unravel the mystery. A brilliant adventure, rich with lovable characters.

Matthew has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Can he help an investigation into the abduction of a child, perhaps without even leaving his house? A captivating read, combining a compelling whodunit with an engaging protagonist.

A sinister and secret society seems to be operating at Eton, while in the Mediterranean a young girl and her tutor are taken captive by a Hungarian pirate – but are the two linked?

Ted likes the weather, he also likes statistics and routine but his life is thrown into disarray when his Aunt Gloria and cousin Salim arrive, like a hurricane, to stay in London en-route to a new life in New York.

Ten-year-old Emil is excited to be taking the train to Berlin on his own for the first time – but he doesn’t like the look of his fellow passenger, the man in the bowler hat.

When mysterious uncle Calvin rescues Laura Marlin from her gloomy life in an orphanage, she can’t believe her luck! But she soon realises that her Cornish paradise is full of mysteries…

Detective genius, Shelby Holmes, may be small but she comes up trumps when the police are flummoxed by a ​‘dognapping’ in a wealthy part of New York.

In book four of The Sinclair’s Mysteries, Sophie and Lil’s fledgling detective agency is making ripples across London. A tightly woven and engaging adventure, The Midnight Peacock is full of characters you can’t help but root for.

There’s been a rather shocking murder at Deepdean School for Girls – but luckily, young detectives Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are on the case!

Kat Wolfe loves her new home in idyllic Bluebell Bay, especially as it comes with a resident wildcat. But when she starts pet-sitting for pocket money, she finds that beneath the town’s perfect surface lie some dark and dangerous secrets.

Meet Skulduggery Pleasant, skeleton detective, fighting to save the world from wizard-gone-to-the-dark-side, Nefarian Serpine.

Blessed with an extraordinary talent for spotting things which others seldom notice, 13-year-old Ruby lands an undercover job as a code-breaker for secret-spy organisation, Spectrum.

Fourteen-year-old Alex Rider finds his life turned upside down on discovering that his late uncle wasn’t a mild-mannered banker, but instead a field agent for MI6.