Sarah Reviews… Agatha Oddly and the Murder at the Museum

Title: Agatha Oddly and the Murder at the Museum

Author: Lena Jones

Publisher: HarperCollins Children’s Books

Publication Date: 7^th March 2019

Format: eARC

This book was received from the publisher in return for an honest review

About the book:

A second mystery for thirteen-year-old Agatha Oddly – a bold, determined heroine, and the star of this stylish new detective series.

Agatha Oddlow’s set to become the youngest member of the Gatekeepers’ Guild, but before that, she’s got a mystery to solve!

There’s been a murder at the British Museum and, although the police are investigating, Agatha suspects that they’re missing a wider plot going on below London – a plot involving a disused Tube station, a huge fireworks display, and five thousand tonnes of gold bullion…

What I Thought:

It was lovely to catch up with Agatha again just a couple of months after reading the first adventure in the series. This time Agatha stumbles across a breaking news article about a murder at the British Museum and decides she must know more. Her exploring leads her down to the old abandoned British Museum tube station where she uncovers a bigger mystery.

Once again I found the plot overall to be well paced and interesting. The title is perhaps a little misleading as although the murder at the museum is what first comes to Agatha’s attention very little of the book is actually spent investigating the murder. Instead we follow Agatha as she investigates underground tunnels, and eventually manages to tie everything together in the dramatic climax to the story!

There were a couple of points where I felt that the narrative over explained some aspects, but then I reminded myself that I am an adult reading a MG book and it’s understandable, at the other end of the spectrum the story contains some quite big words, I’m not sure I would have known what effervescent meant as an eight year old… I’m not sure if that is perhaps a symptom of the way this book is written, by a TV style writers room rather than a single author. I don’t think it would detract from the enjoyment of the book, just expect a few questions from your little ones about what one or two of the words mean.

I have developed such a fondness for Agatha over the course of this book and the previous. Throughout Murder at the Museum we see the continuation of Agatha trying to discover the truth behind her mother’s death. There’s a section in the story where Agatha believes she is finally about to get the answers she’s looking for only to be disappointed, and that was actually quite sad to read. I hope before the series ends Agatha will get to find out the truth.

I was pleased to see Liam back, and that Brianna has permanently removed herself from the CC’s and become good friends with Agatha and Liam. I enjoyed seeing the professor back, although the jury is currently out on Sofia Solokov the young gatekeeper assigned to become Agatha’s mentor. I’ll have to see what the third book brings and maybe make up my mind…

Final Thoughts

Murder at the Museum is another fun case to follow alongside Agatha Oddly. I think the series is a little like The Famous Five for the current generation of young mystery lovers. I’m looking forward to The Silver Serpent!

The Agatha Oddly series – via Goodreads

More Lena Jones on SWB

Want to buy it?

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As always if you’ve read the book let me know what you thought! If you’ve not read it yet will my review convince you to pick it up?