Eddie Woo, Super Sleuth, is excited. It’s not long now until his school’s annual Triple Threat Quest, a competition where teams compete across three subjects: performing arts, academics and sports. Luckily his team, which is made up of himself, DT and Rusty, has three excellent singers, three amazing mathematicians and two very good skateboarders, and Eddie is practicing hard to not let his team down.

But the Triple Threat Quest becomes the least of his worries when a few days before the competition, Eddie and his dad visit Mr Appleby at his care home. Mr Appleby was once one of Australia’s leading nuclear scientists and he looked after Eddie’s parents when they migrated to Australia in the 1970s. He now has Alzheimer’s, but as Eddie learns, this does not mean Mr Appleby is any less sharp, and when he sneaks Eddie a cryptic puzzle, the solution reveals a sinister secret …

It’s fortunate the trio of Super Sleuths are fantastic at maths and solving puzzles because what follows is an adventure involving a helicopter, bird smugglers, disguises, a kidnapping and most importantly lots of maths and puzzles, because as Eddie always says, maths really is everywhere.

Team Trouble! is a great adventure book for kids ages seven and up. It’s one of the first two books in the new Whodunnit, Eddie Woo? series (the other being Time Out!), though you don’t need to read the books in order to follow along. Your young reader doesn’t have to have a passion for maths to enjoy this story, but if they do, there are lots of extra treats hidden in it just for them!

Dani Solomon is the manager at Readings Kids.