Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

Title: Truly Devious

Author: Maureen Johnson

Cover: I like the cover. The title font is fitting for a mystery. The cover is a little busy, but not overly.

Review: Stevie, who is a crime buff, is off to a specialized high school, where students get to focus on their own specialities. Stevie's plan is to solve the cold case of the murder and missing person case of the wife and daughter of the founder of the school, from back in 1936. But then a current day student ends up dead, and she gets wrapped up in that mystery. Are there connections? Will Stevie solve the cases?

I have to start by saying that even though I've only read a few of her books (the Shades of London series), I adore the author Maureen Johnson, or at least what I know about her from her online personality, and what I saw in person once at ALA. She is fabulously quirky and fun. I saw a little bit of that personality in Stevie in the beginning of the book and then again about three quarters of the way through. Maybe it was there the whole way through and I was just distracted and didn't catch it the whole time.

Even though it was obvious that the reader is supposed to catch that there is something more to David, I wanted to know more about him from the start. By the end of the book, I'm still not sure we know all there is to know, and I look forward to finding out.

I enjoyed the intermixed mysteries, and look forward to seeing if the mystery of Iris and Alice can be solved. I think Johnson's storytelling of these two mysteries was well-handled. Both were given adequete time and attention, and it was not confusing to the reader.

Hopefully we won't have to wait too long for the next book!

Comments

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