Review: TRULY DEVIOUS by Maureen Johnson

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

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. 

The two interwoven mysteries of this first book in the Truly Devious series dovetail brilliantly, and Stevie Bell will continue her relentless quest for the murderers in books two and three.

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Truly Devious is the first book by Maureen Johnson that I’ve read, and all in all, this is a solid mystery.

The narrative voice is refreshing and slightly humorous, with plenty of personality in Stevie’s sections. Integrated with Stevie’s story are third person narrative sections and documents about the original mystery at Ellingham Academy, the kidnapping of a mother and daughter and a student at the school. This is the mystery that Stevie, a budding PI, is investigating 100 years later as her personal project when she’s at the school. Yet it’s not until one of Stevie’s classmates shows up dead does she begin to get answers about the original mystery too.

The writing itself is sophisticated but friendly and there’s definitely a soft YA tone, yet there’s definitely no “writing down to teens”. I’m always a bit wary of books in the third person too—I don’t know why, but I usually find them hard to get into—but Truly Devious pulled me in right away. I think that’s because it starts with the events 100 years ago and we meet Dottie, a very interesting student, and witness her murder, before we even really know what’s happening. This creates lots of tension and ensured I kept reading to the point where I met Stevie and noticed similarities in their characters.

There’s a real sense of character around the school and it feels very real and authentic. I love stories set in boarding schools, and just the tone of the school was really intriguing. We go into the story knowing that the school was the site of previous serious crimes, and it definitely adds a sinister atmosphere, despite Johnson’s efforts to overcome that in the present-day narrative.

The wider setting was one of my favourite things about this book. The school is on an isolated mountain and it reminded me of the “locked room” mysteries of Agatha Christie. References to other crime writers and fictional detectives pop up so many times. You’ve got a lot of Sherlock and Christie references which I loved, and these books have clearly influenced Stevie.

The MC has anxiety! This is one of the first YA stories I’ve read where the central character has anxiety, but the book isn’t solely about that. Stevie’s mental illness isn’t the central thing to the story and she proves that she can get things done and be a true MC even though she has anxiety.

The characterisation is also really done. All the central characters are well-written, constructed realistically, and they have flaws that they themselves acknowledge.

Plus, there’s a little romance! No spoilers here, but I did find the love interest a bit confusing. I never really understood him and was wary of him at several points—but the ending made it clear that this was intentional.

And the ending—this is the reason this book is a 3.5 I’m afraid. Until the ending, this story was a solid 4 stars, maybe even higher. I went into this book knowing that it’s the start of a trilogy, but for me it seemed like the story was just cut off at the end. Too many things were left in the air, and it lacked a sense of resolution to all the major plot points in book one. We don’t get the answers we’re seeking (only half answers), and instead we’re suddenly faced with a big piece of new info, which I felt wasn’t given enough time to breathe. Stevie hints to us that she knows how it could be related to the past and present-day crimes, but for me there just wasn’t enough solid info given. I’d expected that we would’ve found out what happened to Iris and Alice Ellingham (who killed/kidnapped them) but it’s left vague. We’re also given a potential suspect for the present-day murder, but that too is left vague. And it’s this vagueness that unfortunately really disappointed me—to the extent that I’m not sure I’ll pick up book two as I’m worried that we’ll only really get answers in the final book.