MK's Detective Club: The Poison Puzzle

by James Patterson, Keir Graff

Overview

Mystery, danger, intrigue--all in a day's work for MK's Detective Club! Don't miss the first book in this funny, smart, and action-packed new series from beloved #1 bestselling author James Patterson.
  Living in the luxurious Arcanum building—with its interior balconies perfect for playing tag, an elevator like an iron birdcage, and quirky neighbors behind every apartment door—has always been fun and games for twelve-year-old Minerva Keen … until her neighbors start getting poisoned. Anyone could be next, and everyone is a suspect, including Minerva herself.
 
To clear her name and help the police crack the case, Minerva starts her own detective club. So what if it has only two other members, one being Minerva’s accident-prone daredevil brother and the other being the biggest and quietest kid in school, who happens to be afraid of his own shadow? Minerva knows that with her brainpower, the club’s sleuthing skills, and case files full of suspects, they can unmask the poisoner … hopefully before it’s too late.
 
This page-turning new mystery series is packed with thrills, chills, laughs, and unforgettable characters and will leave kids eager to join the best club around.

Published in hardcover as Minerva Keen’s Detective Club

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316412339
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	05/07/2024
Series:	MK's Detective Club , #1
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	117,085
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

James Patterson is the world's bestselling author. The creator of the Max Einstein and Middle School series, he founded JIMMY Patterson to publish books that young readers will love. He lives in Florida with his family.

Keir Graff is thrilled to collaborate with James Patterson on the MK's Detective Club series. His funny and fantastical middle-grade adventure novels include The Tiny Mansion, The Phantom Tower (a Chicago Tribune Best Children’s Book), and The Matchstick Castle (an official Illinois Reads selection). He lives in Chicago.

Hometown:

Palm Beach, Florida

Date of Birth:

March 22, 1947

Place of Birth:

Newburgh, New York

Education:

B.A., Manhattan College, 1969; M.A., Vanderbilt University, 1971

Website:

http://www.jamespatterson.com

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Minerva Keen's Detective Club

"Red herrings and gross-out humor abound in this approachable, Only Murders in the Building-esque whodunit…wonderfully quirky characters, slapstick buffoonery, and smart pacing propel this rambunctious detective story—and its charismatic narrator—into a dynamic mystery."—Publisher's Weekly

"Patterson and Graff deliver a typically fast-paced, twisty caper made up of short chapters laced with frights, flights, misadventures, and, just for laffs, enough burping and farting to put a stockyard to shame.​.. A flying start for a smart sleuth who’s not averse to heading into harm’s way."—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

03/06/2023

Red herrings and gross-out humor abound in this approachable, Only Murders in the Building-esque whodunit by Patterson (the Middle School series) and Graff (The Phantom Tower), which is centered on the Arcanum, a landmark Chicago apartment building that’s “a magnet for people who are different and weird.” Visiting Melbourne on business, the mathematician father and philosopher mother of Minerva Keen have left the 12-year-old and her accident-prone 11-year-old brother, Heck, in the care of distracted older cousin Bizzy. When their elderly neighbor Kermit collapses in an apparent poisoning while playing chess with Minerva, she becomes a potential suspect, questioned by Detective Taylor. Interested in helping with the case, Minerva soon employs her “superior brainpower” to do some sleuthing of her own, enlisting the help of both Heck and schoolmate “Silent Santos” Salgado. As poisonings continue in the building, the junior detectives race to find the perpetrator while evading the Arcanum’s malevolent building manager. Though the puzzle’s solution comes out of left field, wonderfully quirky characters, slapstick buffoonery, and smart pacing propel this rambunctious detective story—and its charismatic narrator—into a dynamic mystery. The Keen family reads as white, Detective Taylor has brown skin; context clues suggest diversity across the secondary cast. Ages 8–12. Agents: (for Patterson) Robert Barnett, Williams and Connelly LLP; (for Graff) Josh Gertzler, Hannigan Gertzler Literary. (May)

Publishers Weekly

2023-02-08
A tween detective’s first case offers plenty of thrills.

Minerva doesn’t start out to be a detective, but when other residents of her Chicago apartment building take to dying or falling unconscious in her presence, she briskly repurposes her school debate club and hurtles into an investigation with her seriously accident-prone 11-year-old brother, Heck; smart, highly anxious classmate Santos Salgado; and savvy, tolerant police detective Wesley Taylor struggling along in her wake. Patterson and Graff deliver a typically fast-paced, twisty caper made up of short chapters laced with frights, flights, misadventures, and, just for laffs, enough burping and farting to put a stockyard to shame. Readers hoping to solve the mystery ahead of the sleuths won’t get much help from the few unhelpful clues and unlikely suspects that emerge; it’s really Minerva’s talents for being in the right place at the right time and asking the right questions that lead to a break in the case. Still, not only do the fledgling club’s efforts uncover some felonious behavior by one of the building’s nastier residents, they lead to a deliciously lurid climax guaranteed to give anyone with a phobia for bugs and other creepy-crawlies nightmares. Minerva reads White; Det. Taylor has dark brown skin, and names and spot art cue further diversity in the rest of the supporting cast.

A flying start for a smart sleuth who’s not averse to heading into harm’s way. (Mystery. 9-13)

Kirkus Reviews