This book is about a sixth grader girl named Hero and her family moving once again, and this time to Maryland. She was named after a character in a Shakespeare’s play (Much Ado about Nothing) and so was her older sister, Beatrice. Their parents adore Shakespeare and her father’s job is Shakespeare: he writes, reads, and studies it and now his job took them to Maryland to be an archivist at the Maxwell Elizabethan Documents Collection.

    When Hero is sent to return pruning shears to their next-door neighbor Mrs. Roth, they become friends. Hero then learns that she is living in the Murphy Diamond house. The story was that Arthur Murphy’s wife had inherited a diamond necklace. The diamond was as big as a walnut and was worth about one million dollars! When Arthur’s wife got diagnosed with cancer the doctors said that they could do nothing because it was too advanced. But there could be a very expensive cure in Mexico. Murphy thought about selling the diamond to pay for medicine but his wife refused. One day he claimed that the diamond was stolen when they were not at home. This was very big news and everybody was there. The police didn’t find any evidence of a break in and suspected that Mr. Murphy had lied and hid it in the house so they searched every single spot in the house. Sadly, Mrs. Murphy died and Arthur decided to move. When Hero’s parents wanted to buy the house, Mr. Murphy was happy to sell it to them. When Mrs. Roth told her the story, Hero was intent on finding the diamond.

    Hero then had to deal with the start of school and all the teasing because of her name. Then she got teased even more when a friend of Mrs. Roth and, the most popular eight-grader boy named Danny Cordova became her friend. Danny went over Hero’s house to help her find the diamond but they both get the surprise of their lives when they uncovered more than what they were looking for.

    This book is great! You won’t be able to put it down. You feel like you are there. The most interesting parts are when you think you know the answer or what’s going to happen next. But then everything twists and you get surprised with full of suspense. I would recommend this book to sixth and seventh graders that like books with twists and suspense.