It’s been a long time since I ventured into YA. Too many disappointing and poorly-written books, plus I think me naturally aging out of that genre. This year, I have been making up for that. I started with Eleanor & Park, which was not bad. But I truly fell back in love with the genre with the Truly Devious books by Maureen Johnson.
About the books
Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. Albert Ellingham founded it, 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.
My Review
I am reviewing all three books at one go because it doesn’t make much sense otherwise. I binge-read them continuously back to back, and now I don’t know where one book ended and the other began. Plus, it’s more like one large story spread over three books – rather than three separate mysteries.
Stevie Bell – our protagonist is an amateur detective who aspires to be join the FBI when she grows up. Obsessed with the murder of Albert Ellingham’s wife and kidnapping of his daughter in the 1920s – she joins Ellingham Academy and proceeds to uncover the truth. Only to realize that there may still be a murderer on campus.
If you are a fan of locked room murders, boarding school stories, or dark academia, this series is a no-brainer. I loved the atmosphere at the school, Stevie and her friends, the teachers, there is a sense of camaraderie, but underlying it is also a deep sense of menace.
That said, the books take time to get going. The first book Truly Devious takes time introducing the characters, the set up, the mystery etc. It is really slow. Mid-way through the novel, and getting nowhere, I was sorely tempted to DNF it. Thankfully, I slogged through the slow parts and overall the payoff was worth it.
My main gripe with the series was that while I loved the basic mystery, I felt it wasn’t developed very well. The mystery plot is complicated and it’s a cold case we’re talking about with no evidence, but instead of building the mystery, Johnson focuses on the romance and the school, which was nice, but it did get in the way of the actual story.
So, yes, the first two books were a bit of a plod. But The Hand on the Wall was fabulous. These books are said to be inspired by Christie, and in the third book, I could really feel it. There was a strong sense of danger throughout, and the plot moved at supersonic speed (as compared to the first two books).
So, in brief. Go into these books thinking it is one big chunkster. Read them back to back, and have patience with them like you would a longer adult book, and you might find yourself loving this series. I know it’s got back my yen for YA.
Ooh okay, I am glad to have the warning that the first book starts slow — I think I may have tried it ages and ages ago and bounced off of it, but I am definitely willing to give it another go.
Oh yes! So slow! It helped that I had all three books with me, and I treated it like I was reading a massive chunkster.