Twelve-year-old Chiana Ryan has a plan. When she hears that her former babysitter Patsy has stumbled over a dead body — knife in the back, blood in the pansies — on her own front lawn, Chiana knows she’s found the perfect true crime to base her entry on for the KidLit Write-a-Murder-Mystery contest. First prize: five hundred dollars and publication online. The only problem? By the time the police arrive, the corpse has vanished.

Armed with a notebook, a stash of colored biros, and every Nancy Drew trick she’s ever read, Chiana enlists her glamorous best friend Tayla and her football-mad, permanently hungry pal Jack to help her track down a missing body and the killer who took it. Between snooping under crime tape, grilling suspicious neighbors, and squaring off with a chatty old man convinced Martians are landing on the church hall roof, Chiana also has to survive life at home — where her new stepsister Sarah has just read her diary and painted her nails with Chiana’s precious Petal Pink.

As the clues pile up — a pink handkerchief embroidered with a mysterious K, a Kung-Fu style dagger, two men in painters’ overalls, and a Laughing Class leader with a lot to hide — Chiana edges closer to a killer who is very much still around. And this time, the story she’s writing might just be her own.

Full of laugh-out-loud humor, sharp middle-grade voice, and a genuine whodunit twist, this cozy mystery for kids is perfect for young sleuths who love Nancy Drew, Enola Holmes, and Wells & Wong. Grab your notebook and start reading — the game is on.