Hachette Children’s Group acquires two ‘page-turning’ murder mysteries from Smith

Hachette Children’s Group has acquired two “page-turning” murder mysteries from award-winning author and artist, Alex T Smith.

Publisher Harriet Wilson bought world all-language rights from Tamlyn Francis at Arena Illustration. The first title – Murder! By Narwhal! – will be published in September 2024. The publisher describes the book as the author’s “eagerly awaited first foray into the middle-grade space". Book two will follow in 2025.

The publisher’s synopsis of the first book reads: “When tyrannical family patriarch Sir Ignatious Gristle is murdered at his country estate, Grimacres, on the eve of his 90th birthday, every one of his gathered family is a suspect. Trapped by a snowstorm with no way of contacting the police, it’s up to his intrepid granddaughter, Edna Gristle, Edna’s friend Archie Crumpet and her tortoise, Charles Darwin, to determine WHOdunnit…

“Bold, stupendously funny and dripping in languid glamour – this series is guilty of fabulousness in the first degree.” The books will have double-page black and white illustrations by Smith.

Wilson commented: “With a knowing nod to the classic crime novels of Christie and Co, Alex makes the genre his own with this page-turning, child-centric adventure full of dusty attics, missing treasures, secret passages and, of course, a huge helping of his trademark humour. And with clues planted throughout, readers will be as keen as Edna to find out whodunnit! The perfect book to hunker down with as the nights draw in.”

Smith, who has won the UKLA Picture Book Award, the Children’s Book of the World Illustration Award and the Sainsbury’s Children’s Book Award, and been shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Award, said: “Having been a fan of murder mystery stories for as long as I can remember, it’s been a real joy to pop on my Poirot-style pince-nez, dust off my Jessica Fletcher typewriter and write my own. I can’t wait to take a new-to-me group of readers into the shadowy world of Grimacres where nothing is quite as it seems.”