Fayson receives an unexpected phone call from her cousins, asking her to spend the holiday with them on an island. This surprises her, as her cousins are normally mean and play tricks on her. Mama has to work, and this is the best solution, despite Fayson’s misgivings. On arriving at their luxurious holiday home, she’s taken to a hut to meet a gang of children, who are trying to solve a mystery. Who is the shadowy person who appears nightly in the lighthouse?
Fayson is set the challenge of finding out the identity.
Set in Jamaica, this story shows cleverly how having material things and lots of money don’t necessarily bring happiness. Fayson’s Mama works hard to keep them both in their tiny city apartment. Fayson is happy speaking to her in patois, yet her Uncle and Aunt expect her to speak and behave in a certain way. The leader of the gang, Tia, says unkind things and threatens the other children if things aren’t done her way.
This book will appeal to children who like mysteries, but also reading about families and friendships, as this also features heavily in the book. I really enjoyed reading The Case of the Lighthouse Intruder, and can’t wait to read more in the series.

The Case of the Lighthouse Intruder by Kereen Getten.

A fun middle grade adventure following Fayson as she spends the summer with her cousins on their small private residential island.

At first Fayson is reluctant to leave her mother in Jamaica, but as a nurse working long shifts to make ends meet, Mama cannot afford to join Fayson. Fayson's fears seem justified when she first arrives on the island as it seems everything she does is criticized by her wealthier uncle and aunt.

However, Getten proves that friendship can overcome as Fayson grows closer to her cousins and the other children on the island. Together they set out to solve the mystery of a strange figure that has been appearing at the top of the old lighthouse. It doesn't take long for the children to realise that Fayson is born to be a detective, earning her the respect she felt was lacking.

Librarian lowdown:
- Fayson is a great role model for all children; smart, brave and determined to defend her and her mother's reputation.
- Important moral lessons around inequality and discrimination.
- Short chapters and illustrations make this accessible for children who have recently moved on to chapter books.

Well, I got nearly halfway through this and realised I was more happy to throw it at the wall than continue. The lead character just whinges incessantly, and while this is the first book in a series (with not one but two sequels already set up and being finalised, ridiculously) and needs to introduce this world, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAS HAPPENED. We have had a non-event that the kids our heroine has decided to hate want her to investigate, and we're almost at the midpoint. The likeable character count is zero, the interest is borderline existent, and a skim to the end shows the whole thing riddled with woke kvetching and daddy issues, instead of actual drama.

🌱Kereen Getten, one of my favourite authors right now!! I love reading her middle grade books, how she transports me to Jamaica in the Caribbean for her mystery-filled adventures brimming with rich cultural heritage. Have you already read her previous titles: 'When Life Gives you Mangoes’ (Pushkin Press, 2020), and ‘If You Read This’ (Pushkin Press, 2022)? If not, you’re in for a real treat!!

🌱What’s so fabulous about this new work from Getten, is that it’s a brand new mystery series. It’s always exciting (and a relief) to know that when you read a book, adoring the story and the characters, that there’s promise of more to come! What’s really super is that with this series, our middle grade readers, who aren’t always that happy that suddenly their fiction books, once they reach 8-9 years old/Year 4+ in school, are lacking illustrations - just pages and pages of text, text, text and what’s more it gets smaller as you get older! I’m happy to report that the text size in this book is slightly bigger for a middle grade, and that illustrator, Leah Jacobs-Gordon, has provided artwork that is dotted throughout the story - including a double spread map at the start. They may not be full page illustrations, but are illustrations that provide context - a building, a clue, characters, to convey emotion or suspense. Great!

🌱Fayson Mayor is 12 years old AND she’s already an FBI agent!! Well, not really, but in her own make-believe world she is. Plus, if anyone can solve a mystery, it’s Fayson, and her cousins, Aaron and Omar, know it. That’s why she hears from them out of the blue. They’re inviting her to their wealthy holiday home on an exclusive island off the mainland of Jamaica during the school break. Fayson lives with her mamma in a small home barely scraping by, life is tough and money is scarce, but they have each other and there’s a lot of love between them. By the way, Fayson considers her second home to be the library - #teamFayson!! Her best friends are the characters in her books… I kinda know how she feels… but her mamma is right, she needs to get out and find some human connection.

🌱It’s a hard decision to make, but Fayson agrees to go to her cousins house for the holidays. Mamma can’t look after her and she can’t afford childcare. Fayson is all too aware of their poverty and difficulties. The reader is already filled with heartfelt respect for this little family, even by the 2nd chapter. Our investment in Fayson’s welfare so early on in the story is very real. The level-headed attitude she has when it comes to making the difficult decision to leave home, and all that is safe and familiar, to go ‘overseas’ to what is probably going to be a trying situation due to the differences in status, is inspiring.

🌱Life at her cousins’ house is so far removed from normality. She has a maid, she has fresh new beautiful clothes, is made up like a doll, eats plentiful meals. It’s all very overwhelming. Then she gets kidnapped…

🌱Kidnapped by her cousins that is. She’s taken to a secret location, a hut. She’s been summoned and she’s about to find out the real reason why they wanted her to visit them. Inside the hut there’s a group of children with an obvious leader, Tia, barking the orders. It’s a secret club! Fayson’s not that impressed, but she keeps quiet until she’s sussed out all the characters. They need her. There’s a mystery to solve on the island. Why her? Top of the class, super-smart, can solve anything.

🌱Tia. Well Tia, she’s majorly rich, majorly spoilt, and majorly a control freak. Her parents own the island. The gang, up until Fayson’s arrival, have been filled with loyal followers, bowing to her every command, and doing every bidding. Her attitude towards Fayson is despicable. She is abhorred at Fayson’s low status and refers to her poverty and situation with unkind words often. It’s hard to digest these moments in the story, but regular readers will already know that Tia will get her comeuppance, will be exposed and come out the other side of her own personal journey a better person. Explaining about Tia, brings me onto another theme of the story. Being from the city and living within her socio-economic demographic, Fayson speaks with a heavy Jamaican accent speckled with Patois, disallowed and ridiculed by the wealthy side of the family, who celebrate their ‘Queens-English’ style of speaking. Fayson’s Uncle in particular nags Fayson frequently, and she tries her best for her Aunt and Uncle not to ‘embarrass’ them. It’s wearing, and chips away at what happiness she’s holding onto. Taking these very real problems of bias within the Afro-Caribbean community, alongside the class divide, and infusing them into this children’s story raises awareness for future generations of adults and exposes it for discussion within families and classrooms.

🌱Back to the mystery afoot. Every now and then there’s a shadow of a man at the top of the lighthouse - who is it, why are they doing it, is it a ghost or a real person? Like all brilliant mysteries, there are clues, problems to solve, witness statements to dissect, suspects with motives to establish. It’s a race against time, and a popularity contest for position of gang leader as the crew start to switch loyalties to Fayson. Their investigations are exciting and at times edge-of-seat risky, but together they solve it! It’s not obvious, readers, by the way, so you'll keep second-guessing yourselves!

🌱Getten takes the stigma of poverty, and exploits it within this story for the purpose of teaching about how children can inherit unhealthy attitudes from their responsible adults about class divides, language bias, and typically old world values. It is through the children coming together and learning about their differences, finding out about each others lives and why they are who they are, that by the end of the story, they influence their grown-ups to behave with more kindness, understanding and acceptance. Always a winner in my eyes.

🌱Very pleased to let you know that book 2 in this series, ‘Di Island Crew Investigates: The Case of the Haunted Wardrobe’ (Pushkin Press) is out on 5th October 2023.

This reminded me of Secret Seven stories I loved as a child. A fun adventure with just the right amount of fear and peril. When Fayson goes to stay on an island off the coast of Jamaica with her cousins she feels completely out of place. She is used to city life in a small apartment with her mother, while her cousins and their friends are used to spacious gardens and airy homes. Fayson is desperate to be a detective, so is easily drawn into solving the mystery of the lighthouse, even though she doesn’t feel like she belongs in the Gang.

This is a short story, so is perfect for readers just getting into chapter books who love mysteries and adventures. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for the rest of the series to add to my class library

A fantastic start to a brand new series suitable for ages 7+. It's a great mystery for children who want a mystery to solve but don't want murder mysteries. It has themes of family and friendship, alongside Kereen Getten's brilliant writing style. Getten has created such wonderfully fully-formed characters and an atmospheric setting in such a short story which is great to read and really draws the reader in!

First in a series of mystery-based adventures by the fabulous Kereen Getten. I really enjoyed her signature astute depiction of the relationships between children and the characterisation. Can't wait for the next in what promises to be a popular series.

I really enjoyed this mystery story and read it from start to finish in one sitting. Fayson and her cousins Omar and Aaron have the chance to solve a real-life mystery and fulfill one of her dreams. She finds herself invited to join the 'Greatest Gang of All Time' to solve the mystery which the others have been unable to unravel. The dynamic between the children in the groups is fascinating and this is central to the story line. Throughout the story, there are also frequent references to how differently people behave depending upon the expectations of society. It was lovely to have Fayson speaking a mixture of English with her aunt and uncle and also 'patwah' which she spoke at home with her mum.
I hope there will be another adventure for the newly formed 'Di Island Crew' so that we can see how the relationships between the children continue to develop.

A great short story for KS2. Good morel and the mystery is gripping. Fayson’s adventure on an island just off Jamaica is good fun.

My 9 year old really enjoyed the style of writing in this one. She said it read very differently to books she usually reads and that made it an exciting read. The mystery element kept her guessing and she found this one hard to put down. She loved how the story unfolded and how all her questions were answered and really liked the ending. Great characters, brilliantly paced and a big fat recommendation from her.

4 -4.5 stars.

An enjoyable mystery adventure set on an island off Jamaica. Faysoon is invited to stay with her cousins and gets swept up into discovering who the mysterious intruder in the lighthouse is.
A good, shorter read for key stage 2.

Thank you so much to Pushkin Press and Netgalley for the Ebook to read and review.

Fayson is invited to stay on a private island with her cousins she hasn’t seen in years to help solve a mystery. The mystery of the shadow in the lighthouse each night. She struggles to fit in with the lifestyle of everyone on the island, but the mystery and solving it keeps her going even in the toughest times.

What a unique and interesting mystery, I honestly had no clue who was doing it, who the shadow was at all not once. It was so fascinating seeing Fayson linking it all together and solving who it was and why they were doing it.

I liked meeting the big eclectic group, each of them were so different but it made the dynamic really work well and I enjoyed seeing the friendship grow within the group. I also liked that even though Fayson didn’t feel like she fitted in, she found her place with them in the end.

I didn’t like her aunt and uncle, especially the uncle he was so nasty and mean, even when he explained why he was forcing her to speak differently he never once apologised for the way he was doing it. Not for belittling and degrading her making her feel like she was worthless and less than him because she spoke a different language to him. I really hated the mis-treatment towards her.

This was a really interesting book, I liked the setting of it being on a private lighthouse island in Jamaica it was so fascinating to me, and I love lighthouses and stories about them so it was just beautiful. I loved the illustrations before each chapter a really great little addition to the story.

If you love solving mysteries this is certainly one that you should look into it’s so much fun, it’s got a unique mystery and the way it’s solved was so fascinating. The characters are fun and you will really grow to love Fayson she’s such a sweet girl.

I really enjoyed this. Perfect for the younger end of 9-12 and a good adventure story! Loved the characters and loved that it was set somewhere outside of Cornwall! I haven't read Kereen's other work but looking forward to this bieng published so I can recommend it to many people!

Forget about the Famous Five. Nancy Drew? No longer needed. There’s a new detective in town and Fayson has mysteries all wrapped up! If you’re a fan of detective stories, then you’ll love The Case of the Lighthouse Intruder!

It’s an easy and enjoyable read, which is well-paced and quick to read. I loved the dynamics between the characters and the personal growth of the protagonist. The focus is definitely more on the relationship between the characters, as well as the Jamaican setting, rather than the mystery itself, but I very much look forward to seeing what Di Island Crew investigate next. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

Fayson loves mystery novels and when her cousins invite her to stay with them in their holiday home on an island off the coast of Jamaica, she doesn't want to go, preferring to stay at home with her books. Then she finds out that there is a mystery to be solved: the perfect chance to be a real-life detective.
The Case of the Lighthouse Intruder is a relatively short novel suitable for younger independent readers. The descriptive writing makes it easy to become immersed in island life with squabbles and tensions going on between the friends in the gang.whilst the adults enjoy their holiday. The developing friendships within the gang take centre stage in the story rather than the mystery itself. It will be interesting to see what Di Island Crew investigate next.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.