I read The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson last year and am finally getting around to posting my review. I have said it many times before: murder mysteries are not my thing, but I love this series. We pick up not long after we left off in The Vanishing Stair. We know from The Vanishing Stair who committed the Ellingham kidnapping all those years ago. What we don’t know is where Alice Ellingham is. Did she survive? Was she murdered?
I truly loved this conclusion to the trilogy. I was concerned that it would wrap up too fast and feel rushed. That was not the case in the least. Maureen Johnson continued with her nearly perfect pacing. I was also happy that there wasn’t a time jump like the jump between Truly Devious and The Vanishing Stair. As I previously mentioned, the time jump had messed with my head because I couldn’t quite figure out what the time differential was.
I was so thankful that the Senator ended up playing a much more prominent role as a bad guy. In the first two books in the series, it is mentioned that the Senator is not a great guy, but they don’t really explain why he is so bad. In this book we get to understand exactly why he is so terrible and why Stevie struggles so much with her parents’ involvement with him. I also appreciated that it allowed for Janelle’s significant other, Vi to become substantially more involved in the story.
Maureen Johnson had this story so well plotted. There were some major plot twists that I was not expecting at all. Johnson managed to keep this book just as shocking as the previous books. I really appreciated that we got to read the epilogue of how things played out through various Batt Reports and news articles. It allowed Johnson to quickly wrap up the story without it feeling unnecessarily rushed.
I cannot commend her ability to create such a believable setting enough. I think I actually got cold reading her description of the snow storm. Side note, I love when authors time the release to fall within a season similar to that of the book. It just helps me put myself in the right headspace. I have never really wanted to go to Vermont before I read this series. After reading, I definitely don’t want to go during the winter, but the autumn in Vermont sounds so beautiful and cozy.
“The wonderful thing about reality is that it is highly flexible. One minute, all is doom; the next, everything is abloom with possibility.”– Maureen Johnson, The Hand on the Wall
Johnson pretty succinctly wrapped all of the story lines in The Hand on the Wall, which is pretty important for me. I am definitely the type of reader who hates having lingering questions at the end of a story. A couple of weeks ago, Johnson announced that shewill be continuing the Truly Devious series with an upcoming fourth book, The Box in the Woods. It will be a new set of mysteries and a new setting. I cannot wait to see what Johnson cooks up. Personally, though, I hope Johnson pulls a Rainbow Rowell and releases Nate’s fantasy novel. It sounded right up my alley.
