Hardcover, 416 pages
Annotation:
Author Maureen Johnson weaves a tale of murder and mystery in the first book of a new series.
Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, 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. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder.
My raring:
The detective had arrived at Ellingham Academy.
Truly Devious is an ode to all detective stories ever written. It addresses mysteries as something precious and deserving the best brains to crack them open. I went into this story for the juiciest parts of mystery-solving and I was not disappointed!
Truly devious is divided into two parts: the past and the present. In the 1930s a very rich and eccentric Albert Ellingham opened a peculiar academy for the most talented people. You cannot just pass the exams to get in there: you have to have a special talent that will suit the academy. But shortly after opening the school, Ellingham’s wife and daughter were kidnapped by strangers calling themselves Truly Devious. A creepy riddle was left behind and soon after Ellingham’s wife was found dead. But not his daughter. She just disappeared with no hope of finding her.
In our time the academy still functions and admits talented kids to prove their worth, and so Stevie Bell who wants to become a real detective comes to Ellingham Academy to solve the mystery of a long-ago crime. But as she dives deeper into the past, new crime happens and more questions arise with it. And it’s up to Stevie and her friends to solve them or to become new victims of Truly Devious.
So, Truly Devious is a really devious book, pun intended! Because every time I thought I had facts and almost cracked the mystery – new details were emerging, crushing my hopes of solving the mystery in this instalment. A very devious twist at the end of the book is proof enough of the wicked mind Maureen Johnson is! I am so happy I have finished this book days before the next instalment is out and I would not have to wait a year for it! I really feel sorry for all those people who had to suffer for so long.
I don’t want to give more information about the characters or the plot, because Truly Devious is a kind of game of perception: we meet the characters, we observe, we learn and we decide what to make out of it all. That’s the charm of this story: you never know if your deductions are going to prove right or wrong. And Stevie was a reliable voice of the story to follow: she hasn’t messed with facts and clues; she was gathering them carefully, presenting to us, and letting us make our own conclusions. I kind of felt myself in one of the Nancy Drew games, which I loved.
Why 3.5 stars then? Because I expected more action or mind-blowing twists, but the story, though, quite intense, wasn’t utterly captivating, and, at some point, I found myself reading it not for the mystery but for the romance, which wasn’t very obvious but nevertheless intriguing. But worry not, the mystery flew back to its gripping roots quite fast and the ending will definitely make you fidget on the end of your seat.
Recommended for fans of Sherlock Holmes!
One Thousand and One Book 