Friday Barnes 13: In Plain Sight

By R. A. Spratt

Reviewed by Tyrion Perkins

R.A. Spratt is a UK born Australian author of many books including Hamlet is not OK, the Nanny Piggins series, several volumes of stories, and The Peski Kids series. She also has a podcast of bedtime stories. Her best-known series is Friday Barnes, and since solving her first mysteries in 2014, the girl detective has amassed many fans.

Having said that, the thirteenth in the series is not a good place to start if you haven’t read any before. It begins with the cliff-hanger from book twelve, with many characters talking, and no descriptions or any way to identify anyone, other than referring to a kidnapping and who did it, someone being in love with someone else, and a news report that the crown princess of Norway and her fiancé have just been abducted.

I was surprised when Friday said, “Don’t worry, we’ll find them.” I had thought the series was about a girl who solved mysteries in her school, but it turns out as Friday grew, she began jetting around the world, solving crimes in various countries so that now she is a special Interpol agent at only fifteen years-old and already friends with the Norwegian royals because her best friend’s brother is the aforementioned fiancé. I’m not sure if Spratt asked permission of the real princess Ingrid from Norway if she could borrow her name for the series, but the real princess has recently moved to Australia for university, so anything’s possible.

In the book, Friday and Melanie follow clues to New York where the mystery of the abduction is quickly solved with adept reasoning and the photo of a bum in a bus stop advertisement. The story continues on, meandering through the boyfriends’ new modelling jobs and organising a museum event for an aged music legend who is donating his notebook. Friday waitresses for it, where a dramatic theft eventually gives Friday a new crime to solve.

There are many things you could criticise in this book: the preposterousness; the detailed descriptions of places yet none of people; long passages of dialogue with no action; and the way most of the adults talk like children. Yet much of the content, like talk of boyfriends, seems more appropriate for teenagers. I was surprised to find Friday is fifteen, because in the cover illustration she looks no more than twelve. However, those who are already fans will be familiar with the style and delight in the book’s real strength – the two main mysteries and Friday’s Holmes-like approach to solving them.

Puffin 2025

R A Spratt