An intriguing new exhibition promises to test aspiring sleuths through a hands-on investigative adventure.

The Story Museum is introducing Mystery Academy: School for Young Detectives, which opens on Saturday, July 18.

Visitors enter a fictional detective boarding school where the headmistress, Christie Moyo, has mysteriously disappeared.

The storyline was created by award-winning author Sharna Jackson.

The museum’s team of Story Curators, young people aged 12 to 16 who partnered with the production crew, developed the display. It combines hands-on investigation tasks with literary exploration.

Sharna Jackson noted that collaborating with the Story Curators on Mystery Academy proved an honour—a genuinely cooperative, inventive, and pleasurable process. The group produced an attraction where visitors arrive expecting a typical school open day, only to find themselves suddenly thrust into the role of investigators.

Attendees can follow clues, solve challenges and move through themed areas including a forensics workshop and a reading room. A secret doorway is concealed within a bookshelf.

Conrad Bodman, Director of The Story Museum, said the organisation takes great pleasure in revealing this outstanding interactive exhibition, which celebrates the heritage and variety of detective storytelling. Young people shape the museum’s collections and presentations, so who better to commission for the next display than the creators of the future? The Story Curators’ inquisitiveness, energy and inventiveness have produced a brand-new exhibition that young fans of detective fiction will cherish; it will certainly spark enthusiasm and amusement among newcomers to the genre and those who simply value superb narrative.

Visitors can discover how detective fiction has developed, meeting popular figures and authors—from enduring classics such as Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Morse to contemporary writers including Robin Stevens’ Murder Most Unladylike, Mini Grey’s Hermelin and Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Author Robin Stevens also served as a creative consultant on the exhibition.

He stated that he is delighted his creations and himself will feature in the forthcoming Mysteries display. The Story Museum occupies a unique spot in his affections, and he has admired it for many years. He is glad they are showcasing the mystery genre in this fresh exhibition. He thinks this will inspire countless young readers, demonstrating to children that they can be courageous, clever, perceptive investigators.

The exhibition additionally displays vintage investigative tools, including primitive fingerprinting equipment and a camera hidden inside a waistcoat.