Jennie Godfrey: The List of Suspicious Things
This isn’t exactly a mystery but it does have plenty of crime. Jennie Godfrey creates a 12 year old character as memorable (and perhaps more rooted in reality) than Flavia DeLuce. Miv, the heroine of the story, lives in 1970’s Yorkshire, with her Dad, her Aunty Jean, and her mother, who doesn’t speak and spends most of her time in her room. Miv is pretty much left to her own devices but is happy enough hanging out with her best friend, Sharon.
Margaret Thatcher has just been elected and the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper is in full swing. While Miv and Sharon are someone insulated from the stories about the Ripper, the news coverage is beginning to grow, and it is becoming unavoidable not to know about him. The boys at her school even play a game called “Ripper chase.”