Cecily Sawyer How to be a spy by Iona Rangeley illustrated by David Tazzyman

"My name is Cecily Sawyer and I'm investigating the disappearance of Emmeline and Peregrine Sawyer. I know this city's mice are being used as spies 

and I know who kidnapped my parents."

Publisher blurb: Cecily Sawyer has spent the evening in the attic, training her pet mouse, Mrs Maple-Syrup – an unusually intelligent mouse, in Cecily’s opinion – when her parents disappear. Luckily, Cecily is more than ready to investigate such a thing. She has wanted to be a spy her whole life, and has all the spy handbooks, manuals and code-cracking kits a girl could need. But soon, Cecily discovers several very strange things in her city. She’s not the only spy out there – far from it, in fact. And Mrs Maple-Syrup is not the only unusually intelligent mouse…

I am not sure if this is a book that young readers aged 9+ will stick with - it has such a large cast of characters and I found the motivations of the adults, who used to belong to one organisation but who have now formed several spy agencies, very confusing. In the end I was also a little bit lost about who were the baddies. I did admire the perseverance of young Cecily and the way she used her knowledge gained from reading a large number of books about working as a spy. It was fun to read the scene when Cecily used the telephone box to transport herself to another place - you have probably seen this in a movie or on the television program Get Smart. In fact, the slapstick style of this book reminded me of a little of that show especially all of her gadgets such as a fire shooting pen and exploding cactus plant.

The organisation names were also a little confusing:

The Espionage Collective

The Intelligent Institute of Espionage and Counterespionage

The Counter Espionage Collective

The Nightcrawler Network

The United League of Reconnaissance

Cecily's books:

Espionage for School-aged Children

The Little Girl's guide to Forging your identity

Code-Breaking for beginners

The Little girl's guide to faking your death and evading your enemies

Manipulation and Intrigue

Surveillance made simple

The Little Girl's G

Thuide to scaling buildings and crossing borders

The Little Girl's Guide to plotting, meddling and coniving

The Little Girl's Guide to infiltration of a Crime Ring

The Little Girl's Guide to Common household poisons

The Little Girl's Guide to starting fires and winning them

So you're assembling a new spy organisation: What next?

You can read story sample here. This book is the first in a planned trilogy. 

Iona Rangeley is the author of this series:

In some ways the tone and format of this book Cecily Sawyer How to be a spy reminded me of this series. These are the newer covers but I do prefer the original ones: