Age 8-11

Dawn Buckle is a plain child of 11, and the sort of girl to whom nobody ever pays any attention. Her parents rarely acknowledge her; she is overlooked and friendless at school; when she puts her hand up in class, teachers ignore her, and “even the nit infestation passed her by”.

But this special talent for being invisible is a perfect qualification for an unusual job.

Dawn is head-hunted to be a spy for PSST (Pursuit of Scheming Spies and Traitors). There follows a tongue-in-cheek adventure that takes her via an unlikely headquarters in a Pimlico hotel to a surveillance operation in an English village where she uses her capacity to observe things without being noticed to good effect. Funny and cleverly written (but for one misuse of the word “inferred”), this light-hearted and engaging story parodies the spy genre without sacrificing the reader ’s involvement. It is set in a knowingly nostalgic present: Dawn wears mushroom-coloured knee-socks with plimsolls, the village show holds a contest for odd-shaped vegetables, and the (female) vicar pedals around on an ancient bicycle “with the air of someone who longed to be in the Famous Five”

(Bloomsbury £10.99).

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

• Audio Books

Times Recommends

• Superfreakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• Vincent van Gogh’s letters show the soul of the artist