Nancy Parker’s Diary of Detection
London, 1920. Fourteen-year-old Nancy Parker leaves school and starts a Journal. She’s longing for real life to begin, preferably as a Detective! But all she’s offered is a job as a housemaid to Mrs Byrne who lives by the sea at Seabourne. Fortunately, Nancy’s new life turns out to be anything but boring. There’s a jewel thief about, and she suspects Cook of hiding a dark secret. And, most thrilling of all, could Mrs Byrne be mixed-up in murder?
Julia Lee’s books usually have multiple viewpoints; so it is here. We also follow Ella Otter, bored daughter of an Archaeology Professor; and bespectacled schoolboy, Quentin Ives, who hates sport and longs to be a detective himself. Readers must keep their wits about them to avoid tangling the reins about who has discovered what.
I enjoyed Nancy’s handwritten and frequently misspelt Journal. I like the way her spelling gradually improves (Ella gives her a dictionary) but she never sorts out ‘psychology’ because she looks for it under ‘S’.
Lee is good at getting across the realities of life for housemaids in the 1920s: long hours, very hard work and few modern conveniences – no vacuum cleaner, for example. Mrs Byrne is less than scrupulous about paying her tradesmen’s bills; even poor Nancy finds herself down to her last sixpence before she dares to ask for her wages. Mrs Byrne makes it very clear that Nancy, as a mere servant, must Know Her Place. She must address her mistress as ‘Ma’am’ – pronounced ‘Mm’, and she must call Ella, ‘Miss’. Fortunately, American-born Ella has no truck with this outdated behaviour; why should she adhere to ‘stuffy English habits’?
The pace is terrific and Julia Lee knows how to keep her readers on tenterhooks. I look forward to Nancy’s further adventures. For children of 10 plus.
