First Week Free at the Roomy Toilet

by Josh Pachter

Years ago, my brother's daughter Aly asked me why I only write mysteries for grownups. Why, she wanted to know, didn't I ever write a mystery for kids?

I was about to give her one of those condescending fake replies that grownups often fob off on children, when I thought Why should I lie to my niece? So I told her the truth, instead: “I guess I never thought about it.” And she looked up at me and said, “Well, I bet you’re thinking about it now!”

Sure enough, I was, and First Week Free at the Roomy Toilet was the result.

Although I'm pretty good at selling short crime fiction to magazine and anthology editors, I had no idea how to sell a novel aimed at younger readers. Sometime in 2023, though, I saw online that Level Best Books was launching a line of kids' books under its new Level Elevate imprint.

I've known Shawn Reilly Simmons and Verena Rose, the owners of Level Best, for years, so I asked them if they'd be interested in considering a submission from me. They were, I sent them the manuscript, they liked it, Kristopher Zgorski did a cover reveal at BOLO Books on August 23, 2024--and the book was published the following month.

What's First Week Free about? Well, it all revolves around June Knight, the fifteen-year-old spokeskid for Yummy Nibbles, "the dog food dogs love more than people love people food." When June decides that she'd like to break into the movies, her agent Morty proposes a cockeyed scheme aimed at getting her the sort of national publicity that'll bring her to the attention of Hollywood producers: he has her pretend to emancipate herself from her parents and go off to live on her own. She winds up in an attic room at a boarding house whose ROOM TO LET sign has been grafittied by local hooligans to read ROOMY TOILET, and when things begin mysteriously disappearing from the other residents' rooms, June the newcomer is the obvious suspect. In order to clear her name, June takes on the most important role of her young career and plays detective. Ultimately, it turns out that everyone at the "Roomy Toilet" has secrets to conceal, and after a denouement filled with multiple surprises, they all live happily ever after ... well, most of them do.

Kids'-book authors Fleur Bradley and Kate Jackson, adult-book author Grace Topping, and award-winning blogger Dru Ann Love all read the manuscript pre-publication. Fleur called it "A solid mystery with quirky characters and a witty voice. Highly recommended to expand your younger YA mystery shelf." Kate said, "Filled with winks, nods, and clever wordplay, First Week Free at the Roomy Toilet had me grinning ear-to-ear from start to finish." Grace said it's "a charming book that can be enjoyed by both adults and younger readers." And Dru Ann called it "an enjoyable book that I could not put down, quickly becoming a page-turner ... delightfully charming."

First Week Free is available from Amazon in both trade paperback and Kindle editions.

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