Laila and Lucy are best friends intent on going to Sunderland Academy, an exclusive boarding school high school where Laila hoped to hone her baking skills and Lucy planned to learn more about investigative journalism. When a cookie baking competition comes up, it offers them both what they want: scholarships that will let their families afford the school.

The plan is for Laila to bake and Lucy to write about the competition. But when one of the judges collapses while eating Laila’s cookie, fingers point in her direction for foul play. As the girls become convinced that someone wanted the chef out of the way, they race to figure out who before someone else becomes a victim.

The Cookie Crumbles by Tracy Badua and Alechia Dow is a great middle-grade mystery that will have readers longing to munch on desserts while trying to figure out whodunnit. The authors tell the story with first-person accounts from the two main characters. As they dig deeper into what’s going on, they learn a lot about themselves, their fellow competitors, and even their own friendship.

The Cookie Crumbles offers just-the-right-amount of mystery for young readers to keep flipping pages while adding humor to a serious subject. I recommend it for ages 9 to 12.

The publisher provided a copy of this title in exchange for my honest review.