First Class Murder (Murder Most Unladylike) - Robin Stevens

Written by Robin Stevens
Read by GemmaChan
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Series: Murder Most Unladylike Mysteries, Book 3
aka Wells & Wong Mystery Series, Book 3
Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
Release date: 04-08-16
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

A murdered heiress, a missing necklace, and a train full of shifty, unusual, and suspicious characters leaves Daisy and Hazel with a new mystery to solve in this third novel of the Wells & Wong Mystery series.

Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells are taking a vacation across Europe on world-famous passenger train, the Orient Express—and it’s clear that each of their fellow first-class travelers has something to hide. Even more intriguing: There’s rumor of a spy in their midst.

Then, during dinner, a bloodcurdling scream comes from inside one of the cabins. When the door is broken down, a passenger is found murdered—her stunning ruby necklace gone. But the killer has vanished, as if into thin air.

The Wells & Wong Detective Society is ready to crack the case—but this time, they’ve got competition.

Kirkus Reviews….Crime-solving friends Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells encounter yet another murder victim while traveling from Paris to Istanbul on the famed Orient Express in 1935. A jewel theft, a spy hunt, forged documents, a magician, a seance, and a locked-room murder–what more could the Detective Society (rising 14-year-old schoolmates Hazel and Daisy). Hazel chronicles how her father’s efforts to take their minds off crime backfires when one of their fellow first-class passengers is murdered, apparently by her jealous brother and possibly for her beautiful diamond-and-ruby necklace. And it’s not just Hazel’s father prohibiting their detective efforts–there is also a fellow traveler, the undercover detective Miss Livedon, whom they’ve encountered before. Disguised as the wife of a copper magnate, she’s really searching for a spy onboard. Stevens’ clever story has been constructed as a tribute to Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, published in 1934, just one year before Daisy and Hazel’s ride on that same train, and uses many similar elements. There’s solid suspense, humor, and food for thought: Hazel’s Hong Kong origins allow her to notice examples of racism, anti-Semitism, and class snobbery that white, upper-class Daisy doesn’t see. Just as Daisy predicts, “the Detective Society’s most exciting adventure yet!”

Note—original book cover