Pages: 368
Published: 21st January 2020
Genre: Young Adult Mystery
Content warnings: Child abduction
Ellingham Academy must be cursed. Three people are now dead. One, a victim of either a prank gone wrong or a murder. Another, dead by misadventure. And now, an accident in Burlington has claimed another life. All three in the wrong place at the wrong time. All at the exact moment of Stevie’s greatest triumph . . .
She knows who Truly Devious is. She’s solved it. The greatest case of the century.
At least, she thinks she has. With this latest tragedy, it’s hard to concentrate on the past. Not only has someone died in town, but David disappeared of his own free will and is up to something. Stevie is sure that somehow – somehow- all these things connect. The three deaths in the present. The deaths in the past. The missing Alice Ellingham and the missing David Eastman. Somewhere in this place of riddles and puzzles there must be answers.
Then another accident occurs as a massive storm heads toward Vermont. This is too much for the parents and administrators. Ellingham Academy is evacuated. Obviously, it’s time for Stevie to do something stupid. It’s time to stay on the mountain and face the storm – and a murderer.
After two books full of curious events and deadly conspiracy, this is where two addictive mysteries that take place many years apart finally converge and play to an absorbing resolution. The clock is ticking. There are theories to prove. Unsavoury presidential campaigns to sabotage. Romance seems dead before flickering back to life even brighter than before. And in the end, a killer to unmask.
Despite a lack of plot development on show here, it still succeeds in being a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining read. The characters take a lot of the acclaim for this as they are drawn so well and make it easy to connect with the story, but in addition there is endless fun to be had with the setting and the writing style, which basks in the excitement of mystery-solving while also being relatable.
Given that the person responsible for the abduction of Iris and Alice Ellingham was revealed at the end of the previous book, it was interesting to see where the past timeline would go from there. The answer arrives immediately, with a bombshell of a twist that turns that part of the story on its head. The events that follow are not only gripping, but they also become highly relevant in the present day.
The question of the killer’s identity here is still very much unanswered and so in the aftermath of another death connected to Ellingham Academy, the opening is fairly tense. Stevie spots a link between them but the clues are much too tenuous to draw any conclusions, which means we still have a relatively long list of potential suspects, and it certainly keeps you guessing. There are one or two characters who give you a reason to think they might be the killer, but it is delightfully hard to join all the dots.
If there is one thing to criticise about this book, it is does not have much of a plot in its own right. Other than a couple of new strands, what accounts for most of the story is tying up all the loose ends from earlier in the series and seeing the mystery through, so not a lot really happens. All the same, it is still unmissable reading for anyone who loves the first two books.
What cannot be faulted even for one minute is how expertly those loose ends are unravelled. It is only at the end where you can fully appreciate the intricacy of how the series was plotted as a whole, as events spanning the whole series – and the time at which they happened – turning out to be all part of the jigsaw. If you already thought the writing was good, then this realisation lifts it by at least another notch.
And by the way, what a fabulous ending it is. The case is finally pieced together and with Ellingham Academy swept by a violent blizzard Stevie channels her inner Hercule Poirot and delivers the killer monologue. Suddenly, everything falls into place and you are absolutely glued to her every word. It is like a shameless love letter to the works of Agatha Christie, and it works so incredibly well. As for who turned out to be the killer, that caught me completely by surprise.
One of the great things is that while Stevie may share Poirot’s ability to disentangle complex crimes, that is where the similarities end. Her anxiety continues to be explored more here and she is even more relatable as a result, but even better than that is the fact she is always true to herself and never tries to be anyone else. Indeed, the same could perhaps be said about most of the main characters.
I expected her machine to be a little more sophisticated, but Janelle is amazing as ever and big respect to her for caring about doing the right thing. It was good to see Vi and Germaine more involved in the story here too. Nate is just such an amazing friend who knows and understands Stevie so well, and as for Hunter, he turns out to be a bit of a dark horse when it comes to bringing down Edward King.
Then we have David, and I am still not sure if I really like him or not. He is of course very complex and does redeem himself in many ways here, but there is still something about him and his on/off romance with Stevie that is difficult to connect with. The one question from the series that was not resolved also concerns David, and that is where did he get all those squirrels from?!
In both timelines, Ellingham Academy is a wonderful setting with all its deified buildings and their hidden passageways, along with the secluded location. The snowdrift that arrives partway through the story gives it a further air of menace, with the harsh conditions and claustrophobic atmosphere adding to the knowledge that there is a killer close by. This book also takes steps into neighbouring Burlington, and the descriptions make it seem like the mindfulness capital of the world.
The writing is the perfect mix of formal and informal, with aspects such as Stevie’s panic attacks and the deaths of certain characters being handled sensitively without ever becoming too heavy. It is overwhelmingly fun to read and that also applies to the past timeline, which is told in a faintly light-hearted way has its own unique, evocative vibe.
Overall, all the mysteries that were set in motion in this series receive a fitting conclusion here. It may not have a great deal of plot on its own, but this book still contains unexpected twists, wonderful moments of character-building, and is just extremely clever. It brings the trilogy to a close, but thankfully, this is not the end of Stevie and her crime solving.
I would have liked this book to have had more of a plot. That has affected my overall rating, but I really enjoyed just about everything else!
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5
Stephen Reads Books 