I picked up Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson with high expectations (thanks, bookernet) and a cozy fall-vibes murder board aesthetic in mind. Boarding school in the mountains? Cold case from the 1930s? A true crime–obsessed teen sleuth with a questionable relationship to social cues? Sounds like just my jam.
And it really was everything I hoped for—clever, well-paced, full of rich atmosphere and that delightful dark-academia-meets-YA energy. Stevie Bell is a fun, flawed narrator with a sharp mind and a singular focus on solving the infamous Ellingham Academy case. The setting is extravagant, the stakes feel real, and the cold case is layered and twisty in all the right ways.
But somewhere around chapter thirty… I started to get suspicious. Not about the crime—about the structure.
A quick Google search later, and there it was: the mystery only seems to wrap up in book one. In fact, it spans the entire trilogy.
Whoops.
And while I’d love to say that didn't change things, the truth is… knowing that did change the way I viewed the end of the book. Instead of marveling at the conclusion, I found myself side-eyeing the resolution. Was this actually a solved case? Or just a very elaborate red herring disguised as closure?
Still, Truly Devious was a blast to read. The writing is sharp, the characters are memorable, and I’m excited to dive into the next two books. Johnson clearly had a plan—and I, for one, want to see where it leads.
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