A 2021 Edgar Award Winner, Best Juvenile
A BookPage Best Book of 2020: Middle Grade
A Mighty Girl's 2020 Books of the Year

Introducing Myrtle Hardcastle, your favorite new amateur detective: a wickedly smart twelve-year-old with a keen interest in criminology and a nose for murder in Victorian England.

Twelve-year-old Myrtle Hardcastle has a passion for justice and a Highly Unconventional obsession with criminal science. Armed with her father’s law books and her mum’s microscope, Myrtle studies toxicology, keeps abreast of the latest developments in crime scene analysis, and Observes her neighbors in the quiet village of Swinburne, England.

When her next-door neighbor, a wealthy spinster and eccentric breeder of rare flowers, dies under Mysterious Circumstances, Myrtle seizes her chance. With her unflappable governess, Miss Ada Judson, by her side, Myrtle takes it upon herself to prove Miss Wodehouse was murdered and find the killer, even if nobody elsebelieves he —not even her father, the town prosecutor.

With sparkling wit and a tight, twisty plot, Premeditated Myrtle, the first in a series from an award-winning author, introduces a brilliant young investigator ready to take on hard cases and maddening Victorian rules for Young Ladies of Quality in order to earn her place among the most daring and acclaimed amateur detectives of her time or any other.

* A historical cozy mystery series for middle-graders: From Chasing Vermeer to the Mysterious Benedict Society to Greenglass House, middle-grade readers love a plot-rich mystery series with a smart hero like Myrtle Hardcastle to follow from book to book. Future Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery titles include How To Get Away with Myrtle, Cold-Blooded Myrtle, In Myrtle Peril.

* Subtle STEM emphasis: Myrtle solves her crimes through wit, ingenuity, close-observation, and also the emerging field of Victorian forensic science--in which tools like fingerprints and mug shots are relatively new.

* Adult mystery readers will love Myrtle, too: Adult fans of series that feature a precocious child detective, like Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce mysteries, will be hooked on Myrtle and her supporting cast, along with their meticulously researched and authentically presented immersive Victorian world.