The Body in the Blitz (The Ministry of Unladylike Activity 2)
This is the second instalment of Stevens’s new series The Ministry of Unladylike Activity, where the new incarnation of the Detective Society is led by May Wong, younger sister of Hazel, who was one of the chief protagonists in her previous Murder Most Unladylike series. The year is 1941.
May and Nuala, her friend, are called away from school to work for the Ministry as trainee spies again. They and their friend, Eric, discover a body in the basement of the building in which they are staying. Who is it? How did they die and are they involved in something bigger?
In nine parts, the story unfolds. The plotting in this book is extremely tight, and the reader is frequently unsure who to trust – up until part 7. The reader is convinced that the murder was committed by certain characters, only to have to question this in the last two parts. This ability to change direction of the narrative keeps the reader guessing until the very last page.
Something else of note is that there are three characters who have visible disabilities, and although their impairments are mentioned, they do not prevent them from being three-dimensional characters. Stevens also talks in her author’s note about the increasing pressure to be inclusive by having disabled characters in fiction.
For those wanting to use the novel in key stage 2 or 3/grades 5 to 8, there is a lot of historical detail which could be discussed with groups of children, although it is not a didactic work.
