A Good Girl's Guide to Murder: Deluxe Edition
Holly Jackson
Another excellent Young Adult Fiction for readers interested in this subject
Truly Devious
A smart, atmospheric boarding-school mystery that braids a 1930s kidnapping with a present-day death, led by one of YA's most likeable and believably anxious amateur detectives.
What It's About
Stevie Bell is obsessed with true crime, and she has talked her way into Ellingham Academy, a free, eccentric Vermont boarding school built by a Gilded Age-style tycoon whose wife and daughter were abducted there in 1936. The case was never fully solved, and Stevie arrives intending to crack it. Instead she has to manage classes, an odd assortment of gifted housemates, her own panic attacks, and, soon enough, a fresh death on campus that seems connected to the old one.
Johnson tells the story on two tracks. The present-day chapters follow Stevie's first weeks at school, with plenty of dry humor and sharp observation of teenage social dynamics. These alternate with sections set in the 1930s, plus period documents such as interview transcripts and case notes, that let you piece together the original crime alongside her. The result feels like a classic puzzle mystery filtered through a contemporary, self-aware narrator who knows all the genre's tropes.
Reading it is cozy and eerie at once: snowy mountains, secret tunnels, riddles, and a school designed as a game. The pacing is deliberate rather than breakneck, with time spent on character and setting. Crucially, this is the first part of a trilogy, so expect questions to pile up more than they resolve. Many readers end up buying the next book immediately.
Read this if you…
- love classic whodunits and want one with a modern, funny teenage narrator
- enjoy boarding-school settings, cold cases, riddles, and secret passages
- are happy to commit to a trilogy for a fully satisfying payoff
Skip it if you…
- want a standalone mystery that wraps everything up by the final page
- prefer fast, action-heavy thrillers over slower, atmospheric character-driven puzzles
Key Ideas
- 1
Two timelines that mirror each other
The 1936 kidnapping and the modern investigation unfold in alternating chapters, supplemented by archival-style documents. This structure lets readers act as detectives, spotting connections and contradictions before Stevie does. It also builds a strong sense of history pressing on the present, as the school's founding tragedy shapes everyone who lives there decades later.
- 2
An anxious detective, honestly portrayed
Stevie has an anxiety disorder, and Johnson writes her panic attacks and coping strategies with specificity rather than melodrama. Her anxiety doesn't make her less capable; it is simply part of how she moves through the world. Many readers find this representation refreshing, especially in a genre that often favors cool, unflappable sleuths.
- 3
Loving tribute to Golden Age mysteries
The book nods openly to Agatha Christie and classic whodunits: an isolated setting, a closed circle of suspects, riddles, and hidden passages. Stevie herself is steeped in crime lore and constantly measures events against famous cases. The fun comes from watching old-fashioned puzzle elements operate in a world of smartphones, YouTube, and social media.
- 4
Privilege, ambition, and outsider status
Stevie comes from a modest Pittsburgh background with parents whose politics she finds alienating, and she is surrounded by talented, sometimes wealthy classmates. The novel quietly explores what it means to feel like you don't belong, how institutions mythologize their founders, and how money and power can bend the truth across generations.
Limitations
The most common complaint is that this book solves very little on its own; it ends on a cliffhanger, and both mysteries continue through The Vanishing Stair and The Hand on the Wall. Some readers find the opening slow, with a lot of setup and a large cast whose housemates can feel sketched rather than fully developed early on. A side romance divides opinion. Adults used to intricate crime fiction may find the clueing lighter than in Christie, though the dual-timeline construction remains genuinely clever.
Questions Readers Ask
- Does Truly Devious solve the mystery, or do I need the sequels?
- You need the sequels. Truly Devious is the first of a trilogy, and the central mysteries carry through The Vanishing Stair and The Hand on the Wall. The book ends on a cliffhanger, so if open endings frustrate you, consider waiting until you have all three before starting.
- What age group is Truly Devious appropriate for?
- It's marketed to teens, roughly 13 and up. There is murder, some mild language, references to drinking and relationships, and depictions of anxiety, but nothing graphic. Adults who enjoy cozy or Golden Age mysteries often read it happily too.
- How does it compare to A Good Girl's Guide to Murder?
- Both feature teen girls investigating old crimes with archival documents mixed in. Holly Jackson's book is a faster, more self-contained thriller, while Truly Devious is more atmospheric, humorous, and slow-burning, with a boarding-school setting and a story spread across three books.
- Published
- 2018
- ISBN
- 9780062338051
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Category
- Young Adult
Book details and cover from Google Books.
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