Montgomery Bonbon: Murder at the Museum

**From a rising stand-up comedian and exciting new talent in children’s fiction comes a brilliantly funny murder mystery series that BBC Radio called “Bonnie Montgomery is the world's greatest detective. Not that anyone--other than Grampa Banks--has heard of her. But they will have heard of Montgomery Bonbon, the gentleman detective with the bristly mustache, fashionable beret, and accent that's hard to place. Montgomery Bonbon is responsible for solving many high-stakes crimes, including unmasking the Emmental Bandit, restoring the Rusakova diamonds to their rightful owner, and busting an international owl-smuggling ring, resulting in the arrest of over twelve owls. But now Montgomery Bonbon is needed on a case much closer to home, at the Hornville Museum in Bonnie's hometown of Widdlington, where a mysterious death has occurred. Don't look too carefully, however--from certain angles, Montgomery Bonbon looks suspiciously like a ten-year-old girl . . . Brimming with charm and wit, this debut offering from comedian and writer Alasdair Beckett-King and best-selling illustrator Claire Powell is a delightful modern take on the classic whodunit.

Résumé
From a rising stand-up comedian and exciting new talent in children’s fiction comes a brilliantly funny murder mystery series that BBC Radio called “Knives Out meets Poirot—but for children!”

Bonnie Montgomery is the world’s greatest detective. Not that anyone—other than Grampa Banks—has heard of her. But they will have heard of Montgomery Bonbon, the gentleman detective with the bristly mustache, fashionable beret, and accent that’s hard to place. Montgomery Bonbon is responsible for solving many high-stakes crimes, including unmasking the Emmental Bandit, restoring the Rusakova diamonds to their rightful owner, and busting an international owl-smuggling ring, resulting in the arrest of over twelve owls.

But now Montgomery Bonbon is needed on a case much closer to home, at the Hornville Museum in Bonnie’s hometown of Widdlington, where a mysterious death has occurred. Don’t look too carefully, however—from certain angles, Montgomery Bonbon looks suspiciously like a ten-year-old girl . . . Brimming with charm and wit, this debut offering from comedian and writer Alasdair Beckett-King and best-selling illustrator Claire Powell is a delightful modern take on the classic whodunit.

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter One
Bonnie

It always seemed to be dusk inside the Hornville Museum. Even in the bright days of summer, it remained chilly and dark—like a fridge dropped down a mineshaft.
   The narrow windows were blackened with soot, dating back to the years when Widdlington was a town of coal fires and steam locomotives. Hundreds of glass cabinets looked like they had been cleaned only slightly more recently than the windows. Everywhere, signs read:
Strictly No Flash Photography,
never-ending twilight, and that was the way they liked it.
   Bonnie Montgomery was the youngest person the Hornville had seen in a long time. The museum reminded Bonnie of the discount aisle in the local supermarket, piled high with bizarre bargains that nobody really wanted: cruel weapons, whalebone carvings, strange grinning masks, and some suspiciously cheap lawn furniture. She had been begging Grampa Banks to bring her here for ages, and she was not disappointed.
   The museum’s full name was the Hornville Museum of Natural History and Suchlike, and it was supposed to be the oldest building in Widdlington. Bonnie thought this was a pretty funny way to go about things: putting a museum in the middle of nowhere and hoping a town would come along later. But everything about the Hornville was pretty funny, especially the bizarre creatures that loomed over its visitors. She pressed her nose against a glass case in front of her, staring up at a terrible, snarling creature, frozen in the moment of death.
   “Did you know they call them Hornville’s Monsters?” she asked Grampa Banks in a hushed museum voice.
   Grampa Banks was reading a brochure and noisily eating a lemon drops. He always brought lemon drops when he took Bonnie on a day out, and he always pretended he was not going to let her have one, which they both found hilarious. Grampa Banks was the sort of person who enjoyed museums by plodding methodically from exhibit to exhibit, reading every brass plaque and muttering, “Mmm.”
   Bonnie preferred to follow her instincts, darting from case to case whenever something shiny caught her eye. She was never looking for “Mmm.” She was looking for “Aha!” This was what made them such an excellent team.
   Summer vacations with Grampa Banks were always fun, even when they did not involve murder. (Today was going to involve murder, but Bonnie did not know that yet.)
   Hornville’s Monsters were like no animals you would ever see at the zoo. Reading from his brochure, Grampa Banks explained to Bonnie that someone named Abelard Hornville, a man with a huge fortune and an even bigger beard, had bought Widdlington Museum in 1931 and stuck his name on it. Old Hornville was a self-taught archaeologist, an amateur paleontologist, and an enthusiastic naturalist. He was also the kind of person who never bothered reading instructions. So, when explorers sent him the bones, skins, and tusks of exotic and extinct animals, he assembled them in whatever way took his fancy. A trunk here, a fin there, a couple of beaks . . . He stitched them together, stuffed the poor beasts full of sawdust, and put them on display.
   Tourists flocked to see the saber-toothed bat, the diplodingo, and the mighty flamingopotamus. Meanwhile, Hornville became a laughingstock in the scientific community—until everyone remembered how rich he was, and shut up about it.
   Bonnie stared into the cold, hard eyes of a chimpanzebra. She could not escape the creeping sensation that the creature was staring back at her.
   “Can I have a lemon drop now?” she asked.
   Grampa Banks grinned. “Nope, they’re all for me.”
   “Aw!”
 
 That was when the lights went out.
 With a poomf! the museum was plunged into pitch-darkness. Bonnie felt Grampa Banks grip her hand as startled shrieks and cries of alarm echoed around the Hornville’s vaulted halls. The grimy windows let in so little light, they might as well have been auditioning to be walls.
 “Did you hear that?”
 “What’s happening?”
 “Someone spat a lemon drop at me!”
 Then came the scream.
 And what a scream it was. A rattling, terrible, bone-chilling scream from somewhere on the floor above.
 The anxious museum visitors fell instantly silent, and Bonnie felt Grampa Banks squeeze her hand even tighter. The only light was a sickly green glow from a single fire exit sign, and it cast crooked, dancing shadows all around Bonnie—shadows that seemed to have claws and teeth.
 Something, thought Bonnie, is afoot.
 Many people go their whole lives without noticing anything that is afoot, amiss, or even untoward—without ever experiencing that toe-tingling, tummy-twisting sensation that a mystery is about to unfold. Bonnie Montgomery noticed things that were afoot all the time because, unlike most ten-year-old girls, she was the world’s finest detective. This fact was known only to Bonnie herself—and Grampa Banks. Even Bonnie’s mom did not know. This fact was a secret because ten-year-old girls are not …