TheMinistry of Unladylike Activity

Robin is one of the UK's bestselling and fastest-growing children's authors, with over 1 million copies sold through TCM. She was the seventh biggest children's fiction author by volume in 2020.A Spoonful of Murder was shortlisted for a British Book Award; Death Sets Sail, the final book in the Murder Most Unladylike series, was a number 1 children's bestseller, while The Case of the Drowned Pearl, published for World Book Day 2020 story, was number 1 in the overall UK charts.This is the start of a thrilling and highly-anticipated new series, with everything fans love about Robin's books: brilliant but underestimated children, wonderful friendships and rivalries, twisty mystery plots, and history brought to life in most accessible way. Set during WW2, a period which is continually on school curriculums, this new series will have even broader appeal for readers.Stars a cast of fantastic and diverse new characters, but will also feature the best-loved faces from the Murder Most Unladylike series, including Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong.

Robin Stevens was born in California and grew up in an Oxford college, across the road from the house where Alice in Wonderland lived. She has been making up stories all her life.

When she was twelve, her father handed her a copy of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and she realised that she wanted to be either Hercule Poirot or Agatha Christie when she grew up. She spent her teenage years at Cheltenham Ladies' College, reading a lot of murder mysteries and hoping that she'd get the chance to do some detecting herself (she didn't). She went to university, where she studied crime fiction, and then she worked at a children's publisher.

Robin is now a full-time author and the creator of the internationally award-winning and bestselling Murder Most Unladylike series, starring Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong, and the brand-new Ministry of Unladylike Activity. She still hopes she might get the chance to do some detecting of her own one day. She lives in Oxford.

As funny, clever, and warm as we've come to expect from Robin Stevens, The Ministry of Unladylike Activity is such a delightRobin Stevens is Agatha Christie for children: her books have all the rich satisfactions, all the twists and pleasures and the enormous delights of instant mystery classics. I am always hungry for the next oneEmotionally involving, enjoyably logical and engaging . . . The sense of place, time and voice are carefully created, and whether you solve the mystery before May, Eric and Nuala or not, you will make the 400-page journey - despite deaths on the way - with a spring in your stepA new crew of resourceful children takes the helm . . . Meticulous, lightly worn research and sharp character observationThe author of the bestselling Murder Most Unladylike series is returning to what she does best, which is creating a fictional world full of child detectives, period details, sumptuous settings and, yes, murder . . . Spirited and fun, this is a must for young murder mystery fansExpect excitement, intrigue, friendship and a puzzling mysteryMuch superb Agatha Christie-style whodunnitryThis is an exciting book full of suspense . . . I give it 10/10!Rip-roaring stuffA fiendishly plotted, astutely observed novel that's equally perfect for avid Stevens fans and new readers. Absolutely thrilling!

The start of a thrilling new mystery series from the number-one-bestselling, award-winning author of Murder Most Unladylike.

Britain is at war, and a secret arm of the British government called the Ministry of Unladylike Activity is training up spies. And who better to become a spy than a child? A child can go places, see things and listen in on conversations in a way that no adult ever can.

Enter May Wong and her friends. Trained up at the Ministry, they soon embark upon their first mission: masquerading as evacuees, they are sent to a wealthy manor house to spy on the owner, who is suspected of working for the enemy.

And then the murder happens...