Book Review: Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson

Publisher’s Book Description:

Senior year at Ellingham Academy for Stevie Bell isn’t going well. Her boyfriend, David, is studying in London. Her friends are obsessed with college applications. With the cold case of the century solved, Stevie is adrift. There is nothing to distract her from the questions pinging around her brain—questions about college, love, and life in general.

Relief comes when David invites Stevie and her friends to join him for study abroad, and his new friend Izzy introduces her to a double-murder cold case. In 1995, nine friends from Cambridge University went to a country house and played a drunken game of hide-and-seek. Two were found in the woodshed the next day, murdered with an ax.

The case was assumed to be a burglary gone wrong, but one of the remaining seven saw something she can’t explain. This was no break-in. Someone’s lying about what happened in the woodshed.

Seven suspects. Two murders. One killer still playing a deadly game.

Karen’s Thoughts:

We first met Stevie Bell in the spectacular Truly Devious trilogy, where Stevie tackles both a modern day and historical mystery, at the same time, because she’s cool like that. In this fourth volume, a new mystery is introduced as Stevie visits London and learns about the cold case involving 9 friends from Cambridge University. Two of the nine went missing, and although the police deemed it a robbery gone wrong, some people thinking there was something more sinister at work. Stevie tackles the case and readers get to take another spectcular mystery solving journey with the wise, witty, but not always put together Stevie. While tackling the mystery, Stevie has to deal with her anxiety (which she takes medication for), impending graduation, relationship issues of all types, and the knowledge that at the end of the year, everything will change for her. It’s a lot for our Stevie at times, but the journey is fun, twisty, and full of heart. Highly recommended. I love the Stevie Bell series for so many reasons, high among them is the very diverse cast of characters and the way that Stevie’s character richly and accurately portrays mental illness. And who doesn’t love a good mystery?

Coming December 27th from Katherine Tegen Books

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