Is Murder Really Bad Manners?

Apparently, not in literature

I recently stumbled upon a book called Murder is Bad Manners by Robin Stevens. It’s a funny title, but it made me pause. I never thought about it, but there is so much murder in children’s literature. For example, I read A Series of Unfortunate Events when I was seven, and there was at least one murder in every book. I also read Harry Potter when I was in third grade, and that series is packed with gruesome murders! Most people consider murder bad manners (I hope!), but authors seem to have no problem with it.

Anyway, I picked up and read two books in this murder series by Robin Stevens last week: First Class Murder and Murder and Mistletoe, and I enjoyed them. I like reading mystery novels, and if I’m honest, the murders don’t bother me that much. It’s fiction!

The series is about two girls, Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong, both aged about 13. They are best friends and take it upon themselves to solve murders. Daisy, an English girl, is a clever and impulsive character, and Hazel, a Chinese girl, is a rational and more reserved one. They go to boarding school together in England in the 1930s. Daisy is president of their detective society, and Hazel is vice president/secretary. Daisy often overshadows Hazel, but they can only solve the murders together.

First class murder takes place on the Orient Express, (the train is real, this story isn’t), the most prestigious train in the world, where the two girls are spending the holidays, accompanied by Hazel’s father, his secretary, and Hattie, a sort of maid. As the book suggests, murder occurs on the train. During dinner, a scream comes from one of the cabins: a wealthy lady’s throat is slit, and her stunning ruby necklace gone. The two friends then solve the murder which involves a former ventriloquist who faked the scream of the victim so that the timing of the murder is unclear. (Spoiler alert: The victim leaves for her cabin, and her husband goes to “check on her”. Instead, he goes in and kills her, coming back out saying she wouldn’t let him in. Later, the ventriloquist fakes the scream, making it sound like it’s coming from the rich lady’s cabin).

One thing I liked is that Daisy actually reads Agatha Christie’s famous Murder on the Orient Express while she herself is on that train and she then uses knowledge from that novel to solve her own murder case! In Agatha Christie’s novel the murder happens while the train is stuck in a snowstorm in Czechoslovakia… nobody can get in or out. And in First Class Murder the train is also stopped in its tracks in Czechoslovakia… and that’s when the murder occurs. I thought it was a clever literature in literature inside reference. Maybe I’ll read the Agatha Christie novel next.

The other novel I read from this series, Murder and Mistletoe, takes place in Cambridge (in England, not the US), over Christmas and is about the murder of two twins, Chummy and Donald, who stand to inherit a lot of wealth. The murderer turns out to be their cousin, Michael, and the girls figure it out by tracking down the family tree which is hidden inside a bible.

I liked First Class Murder a little better than Murder and Mistletoe, but they are both entertaining mystery novels (I might read another one from the series). This week, we’re doing Secret Santa in class. Funny enough, my Secret Santa wished for a mystery novel! I decided to give her the first book from this series, Murder Is Bad Manners. Murder is gruesome, but in literature it’s OK, so hopefully giving her the book isn’t… bad manners.