The best kind of children’s book: one big and little kids can enjoy! 4/5.
The blurb: When a priceless painting is stolen, our dauntless heroines Sophie and Lil find themselves faced with forgery, trickery and deceit on all sides!
Be amazed as the brave duo pit their wits against this perilous puzzle! Marvel at their cunning plan to unmask the villain and prove themselves detectives to be reckoned with – no matter what dangers lie ahead…
It’s their most perilous adventure yet!
My take:
The Mystery of the Painted Dragon is the third of Katherine Woodfine’s Sinclair’s Mysteries and is every bit as enjoyable as the first two installments in the series. And beautiful… look!
I love these books. They are fun mysteries set in London at the start of the twentieth century. Our amateur sleuths are two independent young ladies – Lil and Sophie – who are smart, resourceful and tenacious. For me, how they take care of themselves and each other is the best thing about these stories. This book has added girl power with the appearance of the Suffragette movement, making the feminist message all the more obvious.
That said, I’m sure readers of both genders will enjoy these books as the male characters are given plenty to do, getting along well with Lil and Sophie as their friends, with only a light hint of romance for the future.
The Mystery of the Painted Dragon, like its predecessors, gives us a self-contained mystery while also continuing an ongoing story-line about Sophie’s parents and the series’ mysterious Moriarty-style bad guy, The Baron. The stakes aren’t quite as high for Lil and Sophie in this book, but the puzzles they have to solve are still intriguing and we’re treated to a locked-room mystery too.
It was also a lovely surprise to get to the end of the book and find this:
Not so long to wait!
Overall: don’t dismiss these mysteries as children’s books and so not for you. If you must, buy them for your daughter, son, niece, nephew or grandchild (hell, buy them for the neighbours’ kids), then sneakily read them yourself!
Claire Huston / Art and Soul
Art and Soul 
Great review! I also write book reviews, but mainly over nonfiction.
I really like nonfiction because it allows me to learn the lessons that successful people learned the hard way, from the comfort of where ever I might be reading.
If you are interested in the nonfiction I have been reading, or if you want to know what the benefits are from reading this genre in specific, please stop by my page. I post book reviews over biographies, classics, and inspiring nonfiction.
https://thewrightread.com/
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Thank you 🙂
I will take a look!
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This series looks adorable!
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It is!! The period setting and the characters are wonderful. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes mysteries and needs to read something light-hearted. As they’re supposed to be for 10 years olds you know nothing really bad will happen!
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I might have to check these out for my daughter. She’s 9, so I bet she might like them! 🙂
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I’m sure she’d love them! They’re such good fun. And I love that they’re so female-driven with young women taking care of themselves and each other 🙂
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