One day, Clare Havens , Australia-based author of The Bella Street Mysteries , did an online search of Bella Street and found Yours Truly! She reached out to me and we've struck up a three-way, trans-continental friendship--three-way, because my 12 yo daughter just might be her biggest fan! Clare describes her middle-grade novels as 'tween-noir', which just might be the coolest genre invention EVER. Her books are clever, funny, fast-paced, twisty-turny, noir goodness. The first book in the series, The Secret Formula , was runner up in the Sydney Woollahra Lit Fest ! Now that Book 2 of the Bella Street Mysteries is out, I asked Clare to pop over for an interview. Describe 'tween-noir'. I coined the term ‘tween noir’ to try and encapsulate the feeling of a gritty, dark, suspenseful thriller for young people where there is a sense of very real danger but where the villains are 1930s style gangsters and so much larger than life that they are not something ...