Andie Bell was a pretty and popular high-school girl, who was murdered by her boyfriend Sal Singh, after which Sal killed himself. The double tragedy shook the small town.
Five years later, true crime loving high-school senior Pippa Fitz-Amobi is an aspiring journalist who decides to focus her project on the town’s best known crime, Andie Bell’s murder. Pippa knew Sal a little, and didn’t think he was capable of such a heinous act; she begins to re-examine all the evidence, without the base assumption that Sal did it. With the help of Sal’s brother Ravi, she uncovers a trail of dark secrets which may prove that Sal was innocent after all.
This is a really good young-adult mystery thriller. The book uses realistic characters in an age group that young adult readers can relate to, but at the same time, it does not talk down to its reader since they are, well, “young” adult. Another aspect I appreciated was that the people in the story are not all black and white, and they have nuance and complexity.
The story is standard mystery whodunit, and the reader gets to puzzle out the clues alongside the main characters. There isn’t some grand deus ex-machina, or some clue deliberately hidden from the reader; the mystery is like a complicated knot that everyone has to unravel together. Despite this, the book kept me guessing till the reveal.
Some weak plot elements are the parents in the book, who seem to have little to no concern about where their offspring are, what they are doing and with who. Everyone seems too ready to talk to Pippa about their life story… why? She doesn’t seem to come across as particularly charming or winsome. Still, on the whole, a good read.