Debut author Jo Clarke makes a triumphant entry to the lower middle-grade market with the start of a new detective adventure series about a travelling school, which will be illustrated by Becka Moor. The series promises adventures in different cities around the globe, and this first one is set in Paris.

The dreamy scenes of the Parisian skyline provide a backdrop for a detective adventure in which macarons are never far from the thoughts of the main characters. If you’ve never had the chance to fall in love with the sights, sounds and tastes of Paris, you will be charmed by the city’s delights after reading this story.

Just the right amount of peril for a younger audience combined with a fun boarding school element and enough clues to keep the predictions rolling makes for a perfect stepping stone into the detective fiction genre for the younger end of the middle-grade market.

The author’s expertise as a librarian and book blogger shines through in hitting just the right spot for the intended age of the book’s audience. With themes of friendship and loyalty, a positive tone and a good sprinkling of fun, the story is likely to be a big hit with lower KS2.

A full-steam-ahead adventure that had me hooked from the get-go. The Highland Falcon Thief is a middle-grade mystery story set on a steam train. With a high spirit of adventuring and a good-and-proper mystery that unfolds with clues and red herrings along the course, this is a brilliantly fun story that is sure to be on track to find itself set among the very best in the children’s mystery genre.

Harrison Beck (Hal) ends up aboard the last-ever journey of a famous royal steam train ‘The Highland Falcon’, unwillingly accompanying his travel-writer uncle while his parents are occupied in hospital having a new baby. Hal doesn’t think much of steam trains – and he is even less impressed when he finds there are no other child passengers on board and no electricity to charge his devices. Before long, Hal finds himself caught up with entertainment of a more old-fashioned kind. A mystery begins to unravel among the passengers – with valuable items disappearing including the princess’s diamond necklace – and Hal begins to record what he notices in his sketchbook. What’s more, Hal befriends a secret stowaway girl called Lenny and the pair set to work to solve the mystery before The Highland Falcon reaches the end of its last-ever journey.

How many of us remember the choose-your-own-adventure stories popular a few decades ago and find ourselves wondering why we rarely see new ones published today? Popular author Gareth P. Jones reintroduces the genre with ‘The Monster Maker’ – an imaginative detective story for readers looking for an interactive adventure, with hundreds of paths to choose from.

Haventry is a town where ghosts, zombie clowns, werewolves and vampires (amongst others) reside happily. That is, until Dr Franklefink’s Monster Maker machine is stolen and everyone becomes a suspect. It is then up to you to investigate and solve the mystery. Your detective partner and boss is none other than private investigator Klaus Solstaag, a yeti who is on a mission. Will you find the truth? What motive does your prime suspect have? Can you find the missing Monster Maker?

In this solve your own mystery story, readers will enjoy choosing which aspect of the crime to investigate next and sussing out who the real suspects are. For fans of the extraordinary and of detective mysteries, this is a must-read.

A classic adventure story with plenty of action and daring rescues topped off with a good helping of home-baked scones. Four cousins – Aiden, Ava, Chloe and Josh – are staying with their grandparents along with their pet dog, Bella, at a farmhouse in the country. After nearly getting knocked down by a fast car during a bike ride one day, they discover the woman who narrowly missed them has more to hide than just her bad driving.

After overhearing a suspicious conversation outside a sinister-looking country pub, they decide to follow her and in so doing stumble upon a trail of missing royal diamonds, some stolen sheep and a gang of dangerous, daring jewel thieves. A thrilling chase across the moors ensues, complete with swirling mist, dangerous bogs and even a spot of breaking and entering. Will the cousins be able to track down the missing diamonds?

Lashings of ginger beer may have been replaced by smart phones, but the premise of children relying on their own resourcefulness to solve mysteries and put right criminal wrongdoings holds a timeless appeal in children’s literature. What we liked especially about this narrative was the impending sense that this was ‘one last adventure’ for the club before they move on to other things. Along with various hints throughout the story about dawning adolescence, the characters all seem in their own ways to be sitting on a threshold between clinging onto childhood status and wishing to be taken seriously like adults. Many readers in upper Key Stage 2 will find the frustrations of the “tween” stage to be entirely relatable. Kieran Crowley has perfectly captured the notion of the characters feeling torn between hoping for ‘one last adventure’ in childhood and also being ready to move on to a more mature phase.

Join ‘The After School Detective Club’ on their first adventure in the sleepy seaside town of Southwold. Consisting of Lucy, Max, Charlie and her canine companion, Sherlock, the group of children become friends one dark, wet evening when Sherlock decides to pick a fight with a mysterious stranger who appears to be signalling from some large rocks to ships at sea.

This is an exciting, fast-paced adventure story with plenty of action. The illustrations, by Ben Mantle, are liberally sprinkled throughout the text and beautifully illustrate it. Reminiscent of both Fleur Hitchcock and Enid Blyton, this series promises to be one to watch. A must-read for anyone who loves a good adventure story, this would make a great class read as there are plenty of end-of-chapter cliffhangers.