Scientific History Mystery: The Case of the Missing Moonstone (The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency) by Jordan Stratford

Eleven-year-old Ada Byron (Lady Ada Byron, Countess, to be exact) is in a terrible snit, hidden out in her redoubt, the wicker basket of her self-made hot air balloon moored above the roof of her London house in Marylebone. Her governess has left to be married, to be replaced by a rather silly-looking young tutor, who introduces himself as Percy B., er, Snagsby. In a further bad turn, there is a girl named Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who is to be educated with her by the questionable Mr. Snagsby, whom Ada quickly nicknames "Peebs." Ada is not pleased.

"It's not fair that Miss Coverlet had to go and marry dumb Cecil. It's not fair that she's not here and you are. It's not fair that my mother has gone to live in the country! It's not fair that I can't just be left alone."

"Lady Ada, if I'm to be your tutor..."

"You're not! Go away. There's no one for you to tute."

"I'm quite certain that's not a word," offered Percy, as he hung from the mooring rope of Ada's balloon.

Ada lives alone with her servants and her self-designed computing machine, and while she has immense mathematical understanding, encouraged by her only friend, mathematician Charles Babbage, she totally lacks any social skills, including combing her hair and changing her frock. But somehow she and Mary form a sort of friendship. Ada's tutor is Mary's only refuge from a miserable boarding school for young ladies, and being tutored in the mansion of the mad, bad, dead great poet Lord Byron is quite a thrill, so Mary turns her considerable social skills to placating Ada with her new arrangement. Glad to have escaped her mother's control, Mary is delighted to be taught by Peebs, and little by little, Ada is enticed away from her mathematical books and her computing device, named the Byron Lignotractatic Engine, or BLE. Restless under the constraint of being proper young ladies which makes them virtual prisoners in Ada's lavish house, Mary casts around for something romantic and exciting to do.

She introduces Ada to the daily newspapers, and the two take particular interest in the crime reports. Then Mary comes up with an idea that excites even Ada. They are to become "a secret constabulary," The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency, and solve crimes. Engaging a ragamuffin boy named Charles to place their ad with the Times, the would-be sleuths are soon presented with their first case.

According the daily news, a unique necklace, "The Acorn of Ankara," disappears from the boudoir of a young bride-to-be Rebecca Verdigris. Her maid Rosie readily admits to the crime, but will say nothing about why the necklace was taken or where it is. Her mistress believes her maid innocent, but cannot explain why she would confess. But when Mary and Ada talk their way into Newgate Prison to visit Rosie Sparrow, the maid tearfully admits that she did not take the necklace, but saw Rebecca's fiance' Mr. Datchery, walking down the corridor from Rebecca's room, starring intently at the misappropriated jewel. Still, as Rebecca points out, why would her fiance' steal her rare jewelry when it would become his, as would everything else she has, as soon as they are married?

Clearly someone compelled the young man to take the jewel against his will, for the benefit of the real thief. But how could that happen? The only explanation the Wollstonecraft detectives can come up with is the new theory of "animal magnetism" expounded by Franz Mesmer. Could the missing moonstone acorn have the power to mesmerize?

There is plenty of clever detecting and not a little harrowing adventure, including an airborne pursuit of the real thief in a stolen steamboat down the Thames in Ada's hot air balloon, in Jordan Stratford's The Case of the Missing Moonstone (The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency, Book 1) (Random House, 2015). With two highly intelligent young girl sleuths and many unexpected twists of plot, Stratford's first book is an offbeat but top-selling entry among the many mysteries offered to middle readers. The cast of characters is a veritable Who's Who (or Who-Will-Be-Who) of 1826. Ada Byron becomes Ada Byron Lovelace, whose work with Charles Babbage gives her claim to have been the first computer programmer; Mary Godwin becomes Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley (the true identity of "Peebs") and the author of the first science fiction novel, Frankenstein; and Charles, the girls' book-loving go-between, becomes author Charles Dickens ("Who the dickens is that boy?" as Peebs asks).

There is abundant wit and a couple of young ladies way ahead of their time, the charming illustrations of Kelly Murphy, and an author's note which reveals the facts about the real Peebs, Ada and Mary, as well as Dickens, Babbage, and Ada and Mary's accomplished mothers, mathematician Anna Isbella Byron and feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft.

This new mystery series promises to please fans of Spencer's The Mysterious Benedict Society or Sherlock's wayward sleuthing little sister in Springer's rousing The Enola Holmes Mysteries (See related reviews here.)

"A good fit for Common Core curricula and a fun overall read, this is a winner," says School Library Journal.

It's in the Cards! Dangerous Deceptions (Palace of Spies) by Sarah Zettel

I could not tear my mind away from Sebastian Sandford and his abrupt return to my life.

Given the manner in which I'd left my uncle's house and all that had happened since, it never occurred to me that anyone would want to enforce the betrothal contract that existed between my uncle and Sebastian's father. I'd assumed the contract was broken by my uncle's failure to bring me to the church. But now the horrible possibility that I had been wrong descended upon me. As an underaged girl, I remained completely under the control of my nearest male relative. I could be given in marriage to a street sweeper or sold to an indenture to the Virginia Colony, as he saw fit.

I will admit, given that my other choice was Sebastian, street sweepers and colonies had a certain appeal.

Peggy had thought that as a newly favorite maid-in-waiting at the court of the Hanoverian Princess and Prince of Wales, she was safe from the betrothal in which her nefarious Uncle Pierpont had attempted to bind her. Peggy had barely fought off Sebastian's most improper assault, and when she refused the marriage, she had been literally thrown out of her uncle's house, leaving her orphaned and on the street at the tender age of sixteen. But her mysterious benefactor, Lord Tierney, manages to place her at the Court of St. James, not from kindness, but to serve as an impostor, a spy against the Jacobite conspiracy working to place James Stuart on the throne of England.

Peggy has begun to feel safe at court, having mastered a proper courtier's art of flirtation, the endless little dishonesties at cards, and the rivalrous intrigues of the maids-in-waiting Mary and Sophie, and welcomes the loyalty of her friend Molly Lepell and her cousin Olivia, her true love, Matthew, and the special favor of the six-year-old dog-loving Princess Anne. But she is thrown off-balance by the appearance of Sebastian, whose powerful uncle, Lord Lynnfield, threatens to enforce their marriage contract against her wishes. Peggy's intuition tells her that Sebastian's reappearance is some sort of blackmail to ensure the complicity of her banker uncle, and she has a suspicion that Jacobite loyalists are behind it somewhere. Politics aside, Peggy knows she cannot sacrifice her love for Matthew and marry the brutal Sebastian at any cost.

It all comes down to a wager at cards, in which Lord Lynnfield offers Peggy freedom from the betrothal and a wager of a small fortune only if she can beat his nephew at the gambling table, witnessed by the Princess Caroline, Prince George, and the full court.

My prologue was over. The stage was ready for me. "Mr. Sandford," I said cheerfully, "I believe you asked me for a game of piquet when we last met."

Her Royal Highness had risen. She moved forward to join my party. It was not to be missed that His Royal Highness remained at her side.

"This is most irregular, Lord Lynnfield," she remarked.

But despite her sovereign's offer of support, Peggy agrees that the game go forward. Her opponent is careful not to win too quickly. At long last the deadly game comes down to the last trick.

I pressed my hand to my bosom. Dear God, I must have counted right.

He lay his cards down. "This hand is mine, I believe." The whole of the crowd gasped.

"And there it is, Miss Fitzroy. You're mine."

But, as it turns out, Peggy Fitzroy has a final card up her sleeve, or rather, inexplicably resting on the floor under Lynnfield's own foot.

Peggy turns the tables most literally, but there are plenty of swashbuckling abductions, daring rescues, and quite a dunking in the dank and fetid waters of the Thames before our heroine emerges, high and dry in a surprisingly revealing but unsuspected conclusion, one which assures her rapt readers yet another courtly adventure in the delicious forthcoming Dangerous Deceptions (Palace of Spies) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014).  Life at the court of the future King George I of England is anything but polite company, and author Sarah Zettel promises another historical fiction romp, a spy-in-the-salon page turner in this unique and riveting series, with its indomitable heroine Peggy Fitzroy overcoming cardsharpers, blackguards, murderous conspirators, and her cruelly confining corset stays to triumph over all.

To find out more about how Peggy Fitzroy finds herself in such a royal pickle, read my review of Book 1 in this series, Palace of Spies, here. And for those readers who just can't wait for another round of palace intrigues in the the third book in this trilogy, may I recommend Carolyn Meyer's The Wild Queen: The Days and Nights of Mary, Queen of Scots (Young Royals), reviewed here for  a lusty review of Jocobean conspiracies.