Truly Devious: A Mystery: 1 (Truly Devious, 1)

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I really want to close this series out, but I read the first two books so long ago that I want to reread them and then binge the rest. Let the games begin!! I really enjoyed Stevie in this once again! She is a super intriguing character to follow and I love how fleshed out she is. The representation of her mental illness is also really well done, and I related to a lot of the things about anxiety.

I'm so happy we finally got concrete answers toward the Ellingham case. I won't spoil anything, but I was genuinely perplexed as to who the kidnapper was. One of the worst things is when witnesses start talking to each other. As soon as you start talking to someone else, the story you have in your head changes. Human memory is rewritten like computer memory. You just get the most updated file." The characters are interesting. A few are plain obnoxious; most of them are quirky, nerdy and geeky...and my most fav kinds😘Soon enough, it's David to the rescue, as he has hatched a fairly stellar plan. He invites Stevie, Nate, Janelle and Vi to come to London to do a study-abroad for a week. Each of them devises a schedule and specific course of inquiry for their time there. 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. I am not a huge fan of dual timeline books where it jumps from present to past with a completely different set of characters, but it worked well for this book. The scenes set in 1936 do not overtake the present story, but are a great addition to the story. It does not feel “info-dumpy”, rather, it is like reading two mysteries unfolding at once.

Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. David has secured them a place to stay. It should be easy. They just need to sell the Headmaster on the idea. I read this book in a single day. Granted, I spent almost 7 hours on a train and had no evening plans so it was just me and the book and no one else for a whole day but I'm not gonna complain. It was a good day, and I say that despite hating spending more than 90 minutes on any mode of transport, be it trains or planes.Johnson is a great storyteller. Her use of imagery was so evocative and I could picture the Academy in both past and present. She is also tremendously skilled at creating tension between characters and situations—I really wasn't sure whom to trust and it's rare that I feel that way when reading these books. I also liked the way she had diverse characters without making a big deal out of them; it was just matter-of-fact.

My only other pet peeve was with Ellingham himself. This book switches timelines between the present day and the past, including scenes with Ellingham. His wife and daughter were kidnapped by Truly Devious, who demands a ransom.I am actually happy I put off reading Truly Devious for almost a year after it was released, because honestly, I don't think I could have waited for the sequel.

There you go! That’s what happened in The Vanishing Stair . We hope youenjoyed this The Vanishing Stair summary with spoilers.

Idk maybe most of you must have not noticed it but I can't just but this shit what the hell you even mean by this? And the characters , plot, mystery isn't the most depressing thing about the book it's this thing:- Let's talk about said teen drama. The main conflict between Stevie and David in this book is - brace yourselves - his dad. David's dad is Republican politician/de facto Trump stand-in Edward King, who Stevie's parents are obsessed with and she loathes with every fibre of her being. She repeatedly refers to him as "the devil" and other such nonsense, even though we never actually find out why exactly she feels so strongly about him. Sure, he's clearly not a very good father, but in none of his scenes did he behave any worse than any other person in a position of power most likely would: using their influence to get ahead, and looking to make mutually beneficial bargains to achieve specific goals. Yet Stevie hates him to the point where she is repelled by the sight of his son, who she had been making out with a bunch before finding out. So clearly not that repulsive to begin with. While looking at old Ellingham yearbooks in the school library, Stevie finds pictures of Francis Crane and Edward Davenport and knows she has found “Frankie and Eddie.” They wrote the “Truly Devious” note; could they also be responsible for the kidnapping of Iris and Alice Ellingham? Stevie can find few records of what happened to Francis, but she finds a Wikipedia article indicating that Edward, a poet, committed suicide in Paris in 1940.