This isn’t your average children’s book. This is a children’s murder mystery thriller!

I bought this book for my ten year old but I’m reading it instead.

High Rise Mystery by Sharna Jackson

We meet London twins, Nik and Norva, sisters who love nothing more than investigating crimes.

When they discover a dead body in their council estate tower block they set about tracking down the murderer.

High Rise Mystery won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize for Younger Readers in 2020, and it’s easy to see why.

It has a diverse cast of characters, as you would expect from a London council estate, and is littered with slang and patterns of speech which make them jump out from the page. The whole thing feels so fresh, and is a million miles away from Enid Blyton’s mystery-loving Famous Five gang.

Here’s the author reading from the book.

Find out more about Sharna Jackson here.