I received a copy of this book from Netgalley/the publishers in exchange for an honest review.

Sherlock Sam and the Sinister Letters in Bras Basah is the third book in A.J. Low’s Sherlock Sam series. Sherlock Sam is a young boy who lives in Singapore and solves mysteries with his friends and robot sidekick. In this book, Sam and his friends participate in an exchange program and spend a week attending an international school. This coincides with Sam being tasked with finding out who is sending threatening letters to an author via his son who attends the international school.  Of course, the island is in the middle of a chain mail letter game, so it seems almost impossible to figure out who is sending the threatening letters!

I read the middle grade books I receive with my three daughters who are in the fourth and second grades. They liked this book, and they were especially fond of Watson the robot. We loved that the book was set in Singapore; I’ve read a couple of books set in Singapore, but this was the girls’ first experience reading about Singapore. There’s a helpful glossary at the end of the book for any phrases/terms that readers might not understand.

I would recommend Sherlock Sam and the Sinister Letters in Bras Basah to middle grade readers. This was a satisfying mystery, and we were not able to solve it before Sherlock and his friends. We have not read any of the other books in the Sherlock Sam series, but we are looking forward to reading the other two books, as well as any future books in the series!