Welcome to the Common Criminals' Club, a cosy murder mystery series for middle-grade and teen readers, full of doodles, danger and devious criminals. If you love Lottie Brooks, Murder Most Unladylike, Derry Girls, or The Mysterious Benedict Society, then you will love Death Before Detention. It's Thursday Murder Club for 9-12 year olds - so step right up: here's your next reading obsession!

This is the story of how we . . .
- Discovered a dead body
- Launched an investigation
- Battled mean girls, feral bats, and nearly destroyed our three-year friendship all in the noble pursuit of solving a complex murder

Mae Flynn is used to the chaos of her rural Irish Catholic boarding school, but she isn’t expecting to discover a dead body in the school kitchen. To make matters worse, the hapless victim, Conor Haddock, was the previous owner of the school building and had recently been talking about selling up, alongside getting on the bad side of seemingly every adult Mae knows. In other words: the suspects are endless.

Along with her best friends, the self-named Common Criminals' Club, Mae is determined to solve the murder. But the more she uncovers, the more she begins to suspect that everyone around her is hiding something. Soon it’s not only her lessons and friendships at stake, but her very life . . .