I have read several books in the 'Murder Most Unladylike' series and enjoyed them, I hadn't read the first in this new series but 'The Body in the Blitz' was easy to pick up and read as a a stand alone. The main characters are connected to the main characters of the original series and whilst this is mentioned, if you haven't read the original it would not stop you enjoying this book. The story is set against the backdrop of the London blitz - a body is found in mysterious circumstances and it is up to May, Nuala and Eric to find out what has happened. An enjoyable read for fans of the original series, or those new to Robin Stevens' work. It does touch on a number of important issues, so I would recommend for years 5 and above.

This is the second in the follow-up series to the Murder Most Unladylike series, but you do not have to have read those to enjoy this. In this story, our young agents stumble across a body in a bombed out house on their street, and it seems as if the cause of death wasn't the air raid. Another cleverly plotted murder mystery, with great attention to historical detail. Highly recommended!

Another great book by Robin Stevens. I enjoyed the aspect of home life during WW2 and how people reacted in different ways to the situation.

My daughter and I loved reading this book together - it had twists, turns, interesting characters and so many atmospheric events. We enjoyed the diary style and really warmed to the characters of Nuala, May and Eric (and Pfote!)
A really enjoyable detective adventure!

I liked this sequel and found it a great follow on from the first book in the series. May and the gang were great to follow again and i like how this moved the location to London and to see them all exploring the city and the drama that happens. Steven's writing was a excellent as ever and it kept me hooked throughout the novel. I will definitely continue with this series!

The Body in the Blitz is a great new book in Robin Steven’s spin off series from the Murder Most Unladylike books. Now following the next generation of mystery solvers, May, Eric and Nuala are being trained by a secret organisation, The Ministry of Unladylike Activity to be spies during WWII. When a body is discovered in the mews where they are living, May and her friends are determined to find out who the body is and what happened to them.

It was a really cleverly written story with lots of twists and turns, including finding out who the body actually belonged to. The friendships were, as always, brilliantly written and Robin Steven’s really manages to capture the complex emotions between teenagers as they navigate their role in their friendship group. It was lovely to see Hazel and Daisy, along with other characters from the original Murder Most Unladylike series, feature as they grow up and find their places within ‘The Ministry’.

A great book, really capturing the drama and danger of WWII.

I’m loving this new series by Robin Stevens and so is my 9-year-old. Set in WW2, The Body in the Blitz is an inclusive, twisty mystery with so many sharp observations about wartime, society, prejudice, and how children are so often underestimated.

I didn't love this book but I did like the setting of the Blitz. I felt like the kids are becoming somewhat annoying - May is always moving, Nuala is just SO Irish, etc, but I did like the story.

My daughter is a big fan of the Murder Most Unladylike series and has also read the first in this series as well so she was very excited that I had been given the chance to read this as a preview copy!

It was a good tale, highlighting the way most children would have felt during the war years - annoyed at being kept in the dark and wanting to do something for their country too! May, Eric and Nuala were fun characters and we loved the nods to previous characters as well. It wasn't QUITE as good as the Murder most Unladylike but still a good read. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 for a bit of nostalgia!

Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for an advanced release copy.

Both me and my daughter are big fans of this author so we were thrilled to get an early read of The Body in the Blitz. This book takes the series to a whole new level and we loved it! Set in the war the group is tasked with helping. Another murder mystery occurs and the gang is back full force to solve it. There’s twists and turns and just when you thought you knew everything you learn you didn’t. My daughter says it’s her favourite yet. I can't recommend it enough for fans of MMU and those who are new to the authors writing you’ll definitely want to read this one.

The grown-ups haven’t realised that May, Eric and Nuala aren’t just drawn to mysteries, they seem to attract them! And there is no way they are going to stop investigating this latest curiosity just because there’s a war on.

An enticing story that will challenge the target audience with the various clever conundrums sprinkled through the pages. I love that Stevens continues to use settings in her stories that drip fed the reader important historical information mixed in with the most marvellous mysteries. Trying to hide a body during the blitz is a brilliant idea and the way it’s woven around the secret missions of the countries spies is deliciously devious.

I can’t get enough of these books, bring on the next escapade!

What a brilliant mystery set in my favourite time period for kid lit books - World War Two. With a backdrop of bomb shelters, blitz and the world of WWII spies, this one was a real head scratcher and I was confounded by whodunnit. But I wary of spoilers and mystery stories being worst enemies.
I really loved following this story through the voice of Nuala and her diary which records the events and the team’s thoughts ‘in real time’. I did find reading this that May was infuriating - she is such a brat! I wanted her to redeem herself but in the end I was left feeling like she was a bit of a madam who struggled to treat others with respect. And that kind of took away from the story for me. Nuala was far more easy to connect with as a character.
Was great fun to see the characters from Murder Most Unladylike series all grown up - what a treat!

Following on from the Murder Most Unladylike series, Robin Stevens has continued her success of writing mysteries by introducing readers to Hazel's younger sister, May. In the second of The Ministry of Unladylike Activity series, May, together with her new friends Eric and Nuala, are plunged into a baffling mystery set in the terrifying but fascinating backdrop of The Blitz...

When the ministry calls May, Eric and Nuala back to London, the three spies-in-training find themselves staying in a street full of eclectic people thrown together by the war. But there's more than the nightly air-raids to contend with for, when they find a body in the wreckage of a bombed house, they find themselves in the middle of a strange and complex mystery. Will they ever begin to fit the pieces together or will their suspicions collapse like the houses around them?

Told in first person, in diary format, this second release switches the narrative responsibility to Nuala, rather than the previous dual narrative of May and Nuala. This allows readers to see things through the eyes of a wonderfully gentle and earnest character whilst also giving us all the best - and humorous - bits of strong-willed May. Eric is the calm, practical and tender link between the three, making them a great trio to get on board with.

Although the novel is on the longer side in terms of length, it is so tightly and brilliantly plotted that it bounces along at a terrific pace, keeping us guessing until the very end. The atmosphere and tension of the setting made this mystery particularly electric and, thanks to Robin Stevens sensory and detailed description, I almost felt like I was in the midst of war-time London myself.

The case of characters is large and yet compelling. Each one - both on and off the page - is distinguishable and the street where the mystery is set is practically a character in itself. This is a classic mystery centred in a city of bombs and rubble and offers a huge amount of historical accuracy as well as the fictional mystery. This might just be the most atmospheric mystery I've ever read.

I was gripped by this book from the moment I picked it up. There's something truly comforting about Robin Steven's writing. You can fall deeply into the book and just be completely engrossed. I honestly struggled so much to put it down.

I've always loved the diversity in Robin Steven's books. Bringing in gay characters and Asian characters. This book hit a new high. Not only has Steven's now announced that Daisy has autism, but one of the main characters in this book has ADHD. In this book there's also a character with one leg, a deaf character and characters with different races and nationalities. Although in the case of some of the characters (especially the Neurodiverse ones) she can't say exactly their identity in the book, she has stated it in the Author's Note and made it very clear in the text. The only thing I would like is a bit more empathy towards May's ADHD. I expect it's coming, that the characters will in later books be much more compassionate towards the way May's brain works, because that's the way Robin Stevens writes diverse characters, so I look forward to that.

I guessed a few things about the mystery which I was pretty proud of, Stevens put in as many twists and turns as usual so I expect it's that I've got cleverer rather than her becoming predictable. All in all a very good mystery as usual.

If you or you children haven't picked up these books yet, you are seriously missing out. These are the very best in Children's Mystery Fiction.

As a pre-teen my daughter devoured every Robin Steven’s book available- having just read Body in the Blitz I can see why! What an absolute page turner. I was fully invested from page one and was laughed at a few times by my daughter (now 16 yrs old) as I mused, whilst driving along, who could have killed Miss Fig!
Cracking book, superb characters and well written.

A lovely, compelling and well plotted mystery that can be appreciated by younger and older readers.
The plot is well developed, the characters are fleshed out and it's enjoyable.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I read quite a lot of children’s fiction so I was pleased to get an arc of this. It wasn’t awful but it wasn’t that engaging and Eric was the only character I didn’t find annoying in some way! Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

I will read everything that Robin Stevens writes, and continue to be blown away by her talent and skill. This is the second in The Ministry of Unladylike Activity series, which are a wonderful follow on from the Murder Most Unladylike Series.

In the 'Ministry' books, three incredible 10 and 11 year olds, May, who is Hazel Wong's much louder little sister, Nuala, who takes on Hazel's mantle in writing the stories, and Eric. The three of them are a formidable trio, snuffling out clues and mysteries even when they are trying their best not to be involved!

The Body in the Blitz is set in a small mews in central London where the trio are staying, as they have been asked to help the Ministry with decoding messages from overseas agents. Their innocent explorations of the mews, bombed out areas included, quickly reveal there is a body in a basement that should not be there. The three agents work together to try and work out who it is, why they are there. how it happened and what should happen next.

I absolutely loved the MMU series and could never guess the murderer; that was the same for this book, where I felt very clever to have spotted one clue, but missed the others by miles!

The story is full of fantastic historical detail, though never becomes bogged down in it and I loved Robin Stevens' appendices at the end of the book highlighting where else readers can find out more about various aspects of wartime life.

The second outing for the intrepid trio of May, Eric and Nuala, who are now based in wartime London and receiving training in codes and spycraft. The background of their first adventure (The Ministry of Unladylike Activity) is referenced only in passing; this can definitely be read as a standalone.

I loved this. The character development is excellent; we see the children learning to work together, appreciating one another's strengths and supporting each other's sensitivities.

The residents of Hogarth Mews are wonderfully diverse in multiple ways. Nationality and language differences are made apparent but other representations are played more subtly and may or may not be picked up by the reader, from sexuality and gender to neurodiversity and disability.

It's a joy to read a children's book set in WW2 that is so nuanced about war and about good and evil.

Do you have to be bad, to be a murderer? Or can you just be a normal person who's stumbled?


Sitting here in October 2023, with rockets being dropped on Ukraine and now Gaza, the depiction of air raids is all the more meaningful:

You can look at the darkness, if you like, and be swallowed up in it. That's very easy. But they can't blast every building. They can't destroy everything. Sometimes we have to do dark things in the war, but we can't stop looking for the light.


I've only read the first three in the Murder Most Unladylike series and although MMU characters appear here [May is after all the younger sister of Hazel Wong], the tone of this series is quite distinct.

The second book in the new series set in the 'Unladylike' universe, TBITB benefits from having had its characters and new scenario set up in the first book. So with the world built, Stevens can just rip into the story here. And it's such a good one. As always with Stevens' 1930s and 1940s-set books, they are as much about the present as they are the past, and this one is very (if depressingly) topical. Can't wait for the next in the series!