The Head is Dead

Poppy Fields Mystery #4

by Tanya Landman

Poppy Fields and best friend Graham design a murder mystery trail for the school fayre, choosing the headteacher to be the corpse at the end. But when the first person to finish discovers that the head really is dead, Poppy and Graham set out on a real life murder trail.

Genres: Murder Mystery, Mystery

112 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2009

About the author

Carnegie Medal winning Tanya Landman is the author of more than thirty books for children and young adults.

Born and brought up in Kent, Tanya had no intention of becoming a writer until the idea for Waking Merlin popped into her head. "It came from nowhere. It was completely out of the blue."

Tanya now lives and works in Bideford and the nearby coastline was the inspiration for her Flotsam & Jetsam series.

Tanya's first books were "adventure stories with a sprinkling of magic and spoonful of humour." But then Tanya turned to crime, writing Mondays are Murder (winner of a Red House Book Award) - the first in a series of ten "Agatha-Christie-for-kids" featuring child sleuth Poppy Fields and her friend Graham. Her new highly illustrated books for younger children feature Sam Swann, an accident-prone boy sleuth and his faithful canine sidekick Watson.

Although she writes across a broad age range, Tanya is probably best known for her historical novels for young adults. 
Apache - set in 19th century America - was shortlisted for several UK awards including the Teenage Book Trust and the Carnegie Medal (where it was voted the Shadowing Groups favourite). The US edition won a Borders Original Voices prize and a Spur award from the Western Writers of America. 
The Goldsmith's Daughter - set in the Aztec empire during the Spanish invasion - was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction prize. Buffalo Soldier
 won the 2015 Carnegie Medal. Hell and High Water - a swashbuckling thriller set in 18th century Devon - was shortlisted for the 2016 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and nominated for the Carnegie Medal. Her latest book Beyond the Wall is set in Roman Britain. Passing for White comes out later this year.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is book four in the Poppy Fields Murder Mysteries series and wherever Poppy goes people are still dropping like flies. If this keeps up, she's going to end up being arrested for being the world's youngest serial killer.

While I'm still enjoying these books, this one was a little too similar to the last one to get more than three stars. I know these are books for kids but that no excuse for recycling plot points from one book to the next. I'm still going to read book five, though. Mainly because I'm buddy-reading the whole series with Sunshine Seaspray...

[Emma Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! You never know who's the suspect!;-)

[Sunshine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another of Poppy's perfectly, perilous plights!

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was really good!
* Poppy's mum has been asked to design an ecological area at a school, so Poppy and her best friend Graham go as well just for something to do.
* The headmistress at the school is pretty fierce, so when she asks Poppy and Graham to design a murder mystery trail for the school fete, they do as they're told.
* Unfortunately, when the murder mystery trail is completed, they find that the dead body of the headmistress at the end of the trail really is a dead body! The head has been murdered!
* Poppy and Graham get stuck in with their theories of who did it, but the police as usual don't want to know, they think it's pretty clear cut that it was a man whose son had been excluded from school who killed her, but there are so many things that don't add up!

- I really liked this, the real culprit wasn't easy to guess, and there were several little convoluted twists that explained all the strange little niggles. Poppy and Graham are really good at this!
- I had a feeling that it might have been Ricky, but I had no idea that really Ricky was dead, and that his twin brother Davey was prentening to be him so that he and his mum could get some inheritance money that Ricky would get when he was 21. Also, poor Ricky, buried under the car park 🤦

[emma ⁠☆｡⁠*⁠♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

this one is a little funny in how often Mrs plumtree is brought up in relation to the crimes at hand and yet. completely disregarded as a suspect, but that's okay. I had fun. I find the depiction of disability through Ricky very interesting in this. he's characterised as being so sweet, so kind, and very charming, I don't recall there being any comments about how "hard Mrs plumtree has it" or any other allusions to Ricky being seen as a burden,,, if anything, it's the trips Davey is believed to be going on constantly that burdens her. yet, all in all, Ricky is a character we never see, we never meet, we never know. he's a plot device serving as the instigating incident for the murders in this book. I would love to read a paper dissecting the representation of disability in this book,, but I don't suspect people often write social theory papers on tween murder mystery novels 3

[Foxglove · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly satisfying opening, which hooks the reader immediately. As for the plot, it’s honestly amazing. The true killer isn’t easy to predict, even as someone who was immediately able to pick up on the other murders in the rest of the series. Not to mention, everything in the story flows well and makes sense. Honestly, this book becomes kind of scary close to the end with how things fit together. Poppy and Graham never get tiresome as characters, and I always love hearing their voices. I think this is probably the best Poppy Fields mystery so far.

[_ Mhtb _ · Rating 3 out of 5]

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[Maimai Li · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy it so much...the murder part is not deep enough, and the emotion part is also not deep enough...

[Aina · Rating 4 out of 5]

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[Riverina Regional Library]

Members of Riverina Regional Library reserve your copy now

[Dan H · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is a very gd book cuz it is very exciting and gripping