- Mystery
- Montgomery Bonbon collection
- Ages 7–12
Montgomery Bonbon
Part of the collectionMontgomery Bonbon→Best for 7-12s who love a proper puzzle: laugh-out-loud fair-play mysteries with clues you can actually solve.
- Books5
- Arcs1
- Span2023–2026
- StatusOngoing
The series
At a glance.
Ten-year-old Bonnie Montgomery becomes the world's greatest detective simply by gluing on a moustache, donning a shabby raincoat and adopting an accent from somewhere vaguely European. As Montgomery Bonbon, and with Grampa Banks in tow, she cracks a run of impossible cases: a treasure gone from a locked museum room, two deaths at a fog-bound lighthouse, a master thief's stolen diamond, sabotage aboard a luxury cruise, and a murder committed in front of a watching theatre audience. Alasdair Beckett-King writes proper fair-play mysteries, seeding real clues among the red herrings so young readers can solve alongside Bonbon, while Claire Powell's black-and-white illustrations relish every eccentric suspect. Funny, cosy and satisfyingly twisty, the series is a comic gateway into classic detective fiction.
Best for 7-12s who love a proper puzzle: laugh-out-loud fair-play mysteries with clues you can actually solve.
Primary themes
Overall tone
- Funny
- Whimsical
- Cosy
Each book is a self-contained mystery and can be read on its own, but publication order (starting with Murder at the Museum) lets the recurring characters and their relationships build naturally.
One arc
The shape of the series.
- IStandalone collection arcLow sensitivity
The cases of Montgomery Bonbon
Five self-contained fair-play whodunits solved by Bonnie Montgomery in her Montgomery Bonbon disguise, with Grampa Banks.
A fully episodic run of standalone mysteries, unified by the same detective, her disguise and her devoted Grampa rather than by a continuing plot. Each case moves to a fresh, classic setting, a locked museum room, a lighthouse island, a country manor, a cruise ship and a theatre, and hands the reader genuine clues to solve alongside Bonbon. The difficulty and page count nudge gently upward as the series goes on, but any book makes a good starting point.
Fit check
Right for your reader?
Where the series lands by age
- 1
- 3
- 5
- 7
- 9
- 11
- 13
- 15
- 17
- 19
- Best fit · 7–12
- Read aloud · 6–10
- Independent · 7–12
Reluctant-reader friendliness
High
Read-aloud quality
Strong
Adult crossover
Low
Grows with the reader
Not especially
Sensitivity envelope
Low overall, and consistent.
Where it sits
In conversation with other series.
Similar in feel
Different shelves, same wavelength.
- Murder Most Unladylike →
- Adventures on Trains →
About the author