It’s true that, by reading a lot of crime and detective fiction and trying to write three posts a week on that subject, I sometimes forget to just enjoy my reading. So thank heavens it’s time for another Alasdair Beckett-King novel, with Sabotage at Sea (2025) being the fourth in the Montgomery Bonbon corpus.

This time around, 12 year-old Bonnie Montgomery — who, shhhh, is also pint-sized genius detective Montgomery Bonbon, he of the moustache, beret, and Nigel Farage-baiting accent — has been invited onto the maiden voyage of the good ship Dreadnowt, or at least its replica, the original having, naturally, exploded in 1702.

They say the explosion was so loud that the locals in the harbour tavern seriously considered looking out the window.

When the planned firework display is sabotaged, and when, under the cover of all the smoke this creates, the ship’s captain Roger Valancourt is found dead, there’s clearly mischief afoot. And there’s mischief amile when Bonnie’s mother Liz is arrested by the inept Inspector Sands, meaning that the stakes are raised for this particular case.

The investigation, then, centres on the Very Important People who had been aboard ship at the time of the crime, and the usual excellent fun is had as Bonnie and her dual Watsons Grampa Banks and Dana Hornville go from person to person, trying to figure out who among them might have killed the seemingly universally-unpopular Valancourt.

Being funny in person is one thing — and Beckett-King is very funny in person — but doing it in print, and sustaining the miasma of whimsical nonsense that covers the events of what is, all told, a pretty serious crime, is so very, very difficult. And so it’s amazing to me just how well Beckett-King has sustained the humour of these events not just here, but over all four of these books so far. Some of it is fabulous juxtapositioning of absurd notions where they have no right to be (“…really weird, you know? Like a horse being called Alan. Just not right.”) and some of it’s just lovely character work that supports the sense of Aardman-level fun that everyone seems to be having here.

“You do not have to say anything,” the inspector continued, “but if you do say anything please say it slowly, ‘cos Simon, bless him, he don’t write fast.”

There’s one line in here (“The publisher wishes to apologize…”) which honestly had me helpless with laughter for about five minutes, and you don’t get that in Freeman Wills Crofts, so these books are definitely scratching an itch that other facets of my reading are unaware is even itchy.

Huge credit must also go to Claire Powell, whose drawings are so very key to making this world work. I’m aware that these books are available in audio form, but you’re missing out on some excellent conceits if you’re only listening to them — the position of the sticker on page 153, for instance, makes an absolute chef’s kiss of a diagram that is very cleverly telling about that particular character’s situation, and I simply don’t know how you’d communicate that except visually. And little asides like the page from The Detective’s Handbook (1928) are just fabulous bits of icing on this cake. Powell and Beckett-King make wonderful collaborators, and I hope the two of them get to work together making this much merry for a long time yet.

The plot here is a little more complex in the closing stages than before, too, which is hopefully a sign that the young audience these are aimed at are ready for a little more in the way of terminal surprises. And, hey, if not, the moment Inspector Sands arrests someone “[f]or whatever it was you did” is a suitably wry moment that adds to the giddy energy of the whole thing, aided by a couple of fourth wall semi-breaks about the reading habits of certain people and the lengths others will go to in order to avoid menial tasks at home.

There is, too, a semi-impossible aspect to the captain’s death, and the resolution of this is certainly well-clued even if the precise impossible nature won’t hold up should you take this sort of thing too seriously (moi?). But, as noted above, I’m deliberately not taking this seriously, and I’m willing to label it an impossible crime, because, hey, it might get some kid somewhere interested in the best subgenre in the world, and who knows what joys that will lead them on to.

I remain, then, an avowed fan of this frankly superb little series which manages to walk the line between caprice and murder effortlessly. Beckett-King has created something wonderful with these books, and I’m delighted that my Minor Felonies reading has enabled me to encounter and enjoy them as much as I have. And, best of all, the final page here assures us of a forthcoming fifth adventures for M. Bonbon, so I’ll look forward to that taking the wind out of my sails just as I start getting too serious about this whole detective fiction thing again next year.

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The Montgomery Bonbon series by Alasdair Beckett-King

1. Murder at the Museum (2023)
2. Death at the Lighthouse (2023)
3. Mystery at the Manor (2024)
4. Sabotage at Sea (2025)
5. Scandal on the Stage (2026)