Cream Buns and Crime

Haven't completely finished the book as yet, but I'm enjoying the mixture of Daisy, Hazel and Robin points of view. The short story cases are wonderful, though I have read a couple before. I'm surprised by how much I'm enjoying the Robin sections. I'm learning a lot more about murder mysteries from the "golden era" and I've a bunch of new authors I want to read. All of Robin Stevens's murder mysteries are wonderfully fun to read. This is different from the rest of the series, but it makes for a wonderful companion to the whole. I'm looking forward to reading the title story *with treats.* --Cat

As noted on the cover, this is a collection of tips, tricks and tales from the Detective Society that Daisy Wells and Hazel Wang formed at Deepdean School for Girls. It also contains a few of the cases solved by their friends, the Junior Pinkertons, i.e., Alexander Arcady and George Mukherjee at Weston School. It’s full of the same kinds of fun as the Murder Most Unladylike series, and complements it by giving us a better chance to ‘hear’ Daisy, Alex, and George’s voices. There’s also an awful lot about detective and spy novels with lists from the author, Daisy and George. Very well done. I’m looking forward to reading the next full-length murder mystery in the series.

Collection of writing not as good as the full out mysteries in the series.

This is technically the sixth book in the "Wells and Wong" mystery series, but since it's comprised of several short stories and other book-related minutia, it can be read at any point – or even skipped. I wouldn't recommend that though, as there are several gems featured here.Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells are the two fourteen year old students at Deepdean School for Girls that comprise the Detective Society. Despite their age, they've already solved several murder cases, which have been subsequently written up by Hazel in their casebooks. Daisy makes up the logical, daring side of the partnership, while Hazel is more instinctive and aware of human nature. They make a formidable team, though their cases have been occasionally been shared amidst a select group of people: Lavinia, Beanie and Kitty (the girls who share their dorm-room at Deepdean) and Alexander Arcady and George Mukherjee (two boys with their own detective society who they've met outside of school on several occasions).The meat of the book are the five short stories – or short mysteries – that fill in some of the blanks that have been mentioned in the other instalments, for instance "The Case of Lavinia's Missing Tie", which provided the inspiration for Daisy to found the Detective Society in the first place. The two investigate other mysteries at Deepdean School in "The Case of the Blue Violet" and "The Case of the Deepdean Vampire", and the latter is of particular note considering it's written from Daisy's point-of-view (as opposed to the usual Hazel).The Junior Pinkertons George and Alex also get into the act by contributing "The Secret of Weston School", and Bean (short for Rebecca Martineau) contributes the rather funny "The Mystery of the Missing Bunbreak." All of the stories have distinct voices, and plenty of period detail from the 1930s, the time in which all the stories are set.But there's plenty more to be had here. There are chapters compiled by the characters such as "Daisy's Guide to Detecting", "Daisy's Top Detectives", "How to Set Up Your Own Detective Society", "Codebreaking with Hazel Wong" , "The Queens of Crime", "The Junior Pinkertons' Secret World of Spies" and "George's Guide to Unsolved Mysteries", which are all pretty much what you would expect from their titles. Each one is told by one of the characters, and so there's often some insight as to what makes each one of them tick.It's pretty ephemeral stuff though, and there's more interesting content in chapters penned by Robin Stevens herself, such as "The Golden Age of Detective Stories" and "The Books That Made Murder Most Unladylike", as here she delves into some of the novels that inspired her own work. Some are obvious, such as "First Class Murder" being based on Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express", but I'm always interested in finding out about what an author bases their own work upon.Perhaps the most poignant titbit is the fact that Hazel Wong's entire character was born out of Stevens's mutiny against Ronald Knox's rules for mystery writing, in which he stipulates: "no Chinese person must figure in the story."Just to round things off are a few recipes for some of the food that's eaten by the characters throughout the series, and a quiz of the previous five books. In all, it's a hodgepodge of material, and perhaps mostly designed as a placeholder to keep readers busy between the publication dates of the "real" novels, but it's also a lot of fun. The short stories in particular are quick and easy reads, and no fan of Daisy and Hazel will want to miss them.