Mystery Friendship

Paul Marconi has always thought that Bellwood was a strange town, but also a boring one. Not much for an eleven-year-old to do. Fires are burning nearby, Paul's parents are obsessed with winning a bratwurst contest, and his best friend, one of the founding members of their only-child detective club, the One and Onlys, is about to acquire a younger sister, sort of undoing their whole reason for existing. But then! Hundreds of rubber duckies have appeared on the lawn of poor Mr. Babbage without any explanation. Finally! There is something Paul and his friends can actually investigate.

Jack Gantos' rocket-paced follow-up to the Newbery Medal–winning novel Dead End in Norvelt opens in the 1960s, deep in the shadow of the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis. But instead of Russian warheads, other kinds of trouble are raining down on young Jack Gantos and his utopian town of Norvelt in western Pennsylvania. After an explosion, a new crime by an old murderer, and the sad passing of the town's founder, twelve-year-old Jack will soon find himself launched on a mission that takes him hundreds of miles away.

For Katie True, a keen gut and quick wit are just tools of the trade. After a failed attempt at adulting in Chicago, she’s back in the suburbs living a bit too close to her overbearing parents, jumping from one dead-end job to the next, and flipping through her tarot deck for guidance. Then along comes Marley. Katie thinks that with their friendship, she just might make it through this rough patch after all. Until the day when Katie, encouraged by Marley to practice soothsaying, reads the cards for someone who stumbles into her shop—and finds more than intel for her clairvoyance.

A second mystery for 13-year-old Agatha Oddly - a bold, determined heroine and the star of this stylish new detective series. Agatha Oddlow’s set to become the youngest member of the Gatekeepers’ Guild, but before that, she’s got a mystery to solve! There’s been a murder at the British Museum, and although the police are investigating, Agatha suspects that they’re missing a wider plot going on below London - a plot involving a disused Tube station, a huge fireworks display and 5,000 tonnes of gold bullion....

When Amanda travels east to Orlando on a hunch, she's met with the worst news possible. Kingdom Keeper Finn Whitman is missing. Calling on her own gift (she's telekinetic), her sister Jess' ability to dream the future, and their fellow Fairlie Mattie Weaver's unexplained ability to read minds through physical contact, the three gifted girls must navigate treachery, deception, and the stubborn, unwilling parents of the missing Keepers if they're to save their friends.

In Act III of Newbery Medalist Cynthia Voigt’s Mister Max trilogy, the solutioneer sets off to rescue his missing parents! Ever since Max’s parents were spirited away on a mysterious ship, he has longed to find them. He’s solved case after case for other people in his business as “solutioneer”. And he’s puzzled out the coded messages sent by his father. He doesn’t know exactly what’s happened, but he knows his parents are in danger - and it’s up to Max to save them. Max and his friends (and a few old foes) don disguises and set sail on a rescue mission.

Mila and her husband Ethan are on their way to her sister’s wedding at a luxurious ski resort. As they drive through the mountains, surrounded by snow covered forests, Mila feels like everything is finally going to plan. When the car engine suddenly stops and won’t start again. Stranded, with night closing in, they make their way on foot back to where they saw a sign for some cabins. When they finally reach them, they find the windows boarded up and the buildings in disrepair. They have the eerie sense they shouldn’t be there.

When Crystal Donavan gets a message on a mysterious app with a picture of her little sister gagged and bound, she agrees to play the kidnapper’s game. At first, they make her complete bizarre tasks: Steal a test and stuff it in a locker, bake brownies, make a prank call. But then Crystal realizes that each task is meant to hurt—and kill—her friends, one by one. But if she refuses to play, the kidnapper will kill her sister.

California, 2003: Finn “Kat” Jackman is a 10-year-old girl living with her tween sister, father, and beloved housekeeper. When a 13-year-old girl disappears from a party at Turtle Lake, and the word LIAR written in blood is discovered on the trunk of a nearby tree, Kat’s life is turned upside down. What we know: Three teenagers went to the lake that night but only two came back. Later, they confess to murdering their friend. But why? And did they act alone? And what was the involvement of the mysterious and alluring Manson-like figure Ryder Grady?

At 16, Dru has seen more supernatural phenomena than almost anyone on the planet. So her teen years are far from a walk in the park, especially after Sergej kidnaps her best friend Graves. Willing to do anything to save him, Dru embarks on a desperate quest that might just be her last.

Hiding is Roo Fanshaw's special skill. Living in a frighteningly unstable family, she often needs to disappear at a moment's notice. When her parents are murdered, it's her special hiding place under the trailer that saves her life. As it turns out, Roo, much to her surprise, has a wealthy if eccentric uncle, who has agreed to take her into his home on Cough Rock Island. Once a tuberculosis sanitarium for children of the rich, the strange house is teeming with ghost stories and secrets. Roo doesn't believe in ghosts or fairy stories, but what are those eerie noises she keeps hearing?

Precocious Katy Thatcher comes to realize what a gentle, silent boy did for his family. He meant to help, not harm. It didn't turn out that way.

I, Nate the Great, have something to say. My cousin, Olivia Sharp, is almost (but not quite) the world's best detective. I solve mysteries. She's an agent for secrets. You won't forget Olivia. She won't let you. Meet Olivia Sharp. She's bold. She's eager to help people. She's a special kind of detective. She's an agent for secrets. Duncan is Olivia's first case. He believes that the world is coming to an end. And he wants her help. So, Olivia puts on her feather boa. Her driver brings the limo. Soon enough, Olivia knows just what to do. But how will 50 pizzas make Duncan happy?

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners - and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality. But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped.

When orphaned Laura Marlin moves from a children's home to live with her uncle in Cornwall, she longs for a life of excitement just like the characters in her favourite detective novels. A real life adventure is on hand as she is deposited at her uncle's spooky house... Why does her uncle, Calvin Redfern, forbid her to go to Dead Man's Cove? What's thetruth about Tariq, the silent Indian boy who lives with the flamboyant Mukthars? Who is J? Who has left the message in a bottle for Laura to discover?

They only meant to right the wrongs. It was about getting even. Burn for burn. But the fire they lit kept raging. Reeve ended up hurt, then Rennie ended up dead. Everything will turn to ash if they don’t stop what they started. But now that Mary knows the truth about what happened to her, will she want to? Secrets drew Lillia, Kat, and Mary together. The truth might tear them apart.

Lili St. Crow’s darkly exhilarating Strange Angels novels have won a devoted readership. In the third book of the series, Crow’s unusual heroine, Dru Anderson, has been through the ringer, what with a missing mother, her father turning all undead on her, and forces of evil that just won’t seem to let her be. On the run from a predator with a taste for her blood, Dru can count on help from Graves and Christophe—but they just might do more harm than good as they battle for her affections.

Katarina Bishop and W.W. Hale the fifth were born to lead completely different lives: Kat comes from a long, proud line of loveable criminal masterminds, while Hale is the scion of one of the most seemingly perfect dynasties in the world. If their families have one thing in common, it's that they both know how to stay under the radar while getting-or stealing-whatever they want.

Buildings have memories. Places bear scars. We've all had those moments - a chill in the air, a sense that something terrible once happened where we stand. But some houses are more than scary. They're hungry. Larkspur House has lured five kids inside, and they're trapped. The five will have to look carefully - there are clues to the house's secrets scattered all over the grounds, and if they can figure out the past, it might show them a way out of their terrifying present.

Mazelina of Wexcombe has always dreamed of traveling with her father to lands beyond the confining walls of their castle. But his sudden death deprives her of the future she imagined. Abandoned by her eldest brother, Mazy is soon forced to seek help from her beloved brother Sir John at the great estate of Strachleigh. Her visit leads to a friendship with the dashing and noble Sir Berenger of Dericott. He has notions of rescuing a damsel in distress. But Mazy is brave enough to defend herself—and has proven that her skills in archery and knife throwing rival that of a knight’s.