Novel: Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson| Goodreads
Release Date: January 16, 2018
Format: Paperback
Get it here: Amazon
Synopsis
Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place” he said, “where learning is a game.”
Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym, Truly Devious. It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history.
True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder.
My Truly Devious Review
I love fantasy, which you can pretty easily tell if you look at my Instagram or Goodreads profile. A few months ago, I had been pretty much exclusively reading Brandon Sanderson. I didn’t need a break, but I worried I may blow through his books a little too fast. I decided to focus on a little non-fantasy for a moment. Normally I am not a huge fan of thrillers. Every year, though, I try to step a little outside of my reading comfort zone. I thought a YA mystery/thriller would be significantly less scary. I decided to read and review Truly Devious.
While it probably wasn’t as scary as Gone Girl (I’ve never read it so I truly have no comparison), it was very suspenseful. I struggled to put it down. I wanted to know what was going on. There were so many levels of mystery!
Our main character, Stevie, wants to be an FBI agent. She applied and Ellingham Academy accepts her. Ellingham is a very prestigious high school that allows students to focus their studies on a specific topic. It is also the setting for an infamously unsolved kidnapping murder mystery. Stevie’s goal of her studies is to solve this mystery.
Unfortunately, when Stevie arrives, she falls into a new investigation. One of her dormmates dies in an unfortunate accident…or was it a murder? The explanation that it was an accident doesn’t sit right with Stevie, so she begins investigating on her own. I won’t give away all the twists and turns but I will say that the pacing in this book was perfect. I could not stop turning the pages and it had me guessing every step of the way.
Interspersed with Stevie’s ongoing mystery are flashbacks to the original Ellingham kidnapping. We get to see Mr. Ellingham reacting to the news of the kidnapping and everything that went on behind the scenes of the original investigation. Some of the flashbacks are via police reports and interviews. Other times we learn about the kidnapping from Stevie explaining her work to other characters.
I think aside from Stevie, my favorite character maybe Larry the security guard who helps Stevie. He is ex FBI and as such becomes a de facto mentor to Stevie. He understands that her curiosity is going to get the better of her, but he is constantly trying to protect her from herself. As Stevie gets wrapped up in the murder, Larry struggles to protect her. More than that, Stevie cannot stop investigating, even as it becomes more and more clear that her life is in danger.
Johnson does a great job of creating some really sketchy characters. I was very suspicious of characters in both plotlines. Truly, I thought it was so ingenious to allow readers to see bits and pieces of both stories. In some cases, readers actually know more about the Ellingham case than Stevie. Johnson impressed me by creating two intricately entwined, enthralling mysteries.
Thankfully, The Vanishing Stair, the second book in the series. I marathoned the first two books. Unfortunately, The Hand on the Wall won’t be out until January 2020, so I’ll just be over here pacing trying to figure out whodunnit.
