REVIEW: Truly, Devious

By Denise @ Life With No Plot on January 19, 2025 • ( 0 )

About the Book

Title: Truly, Devious

Author: Maureen Johnson

Series: Truly Devious #1

Genre: YA Mystery

Pages: 416

Edition Read: Paperback

Dates Read: September 18-20, 2023

Blurb: 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.

Review

Going back into the vaults for this one, from the short list of 2023 reviews I never got to (which means I caught up everything from 2024 – whoohoo!).

Maureen Johnson is one of my favorite authors and this was definitely a great read. While I did read the entire series, I’m just going to review this first book. The rest of the series was good, don’t get me wrong, but some were definitely much better than others and this first book really sets things up perfectly.

First things first: I loved Ellingham Academy. I usually enjoy boarding school stories in general, but in this case, the school was almost a character in and of itself. There were so many mysterious parts of it, things that no one could fully explain, and all these little quirks that just made you want to be there. I think that’s why I didn’t enjoy the later books in the series as much, since they don’t take place at Ellingham. While I love Stevie and the gang, without the school as part of the story, it just wasn’t the same.

Let’s talk about Stevie. She is such a fun character. I loved her tenacity and her determination to find out as much as possible. Very Nancy Drew of her. The rest of the quirky cast of characters also do not disappoint, from students to teachers. Of the characters, though, I wasn’t a huge fan of David. He’s technically supposed to be a mysterious dude who could potentially be a love interest? There’s a bit of inner conflict with Stevie about him. She’s kind of drawn to him, but he’s also a bit of a jerk. It’s a weird push and pull, and Stevie should have been interested in literally anyone else (my vote would have been Janelle, her science-y roommate, but alas). I guess he does get a bit better in later books once we learn more about him, but still.

This story had lots of twists and turns and a few really creepy bits. All in all, a very good mystery that keeps you guessing and keeps you turning the pages.

GoodReads rating: 5 stars