Truly Devious

Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont, founded by an early twentieth century tycoon for the best and brightest students around. When Ellingham’s wife and daughter were kidnapped, the only clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym “Truly, Devious.” Their disappearance became one of the great unsolved crimes in history. Many years later, true-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at the academy, and she is determined to solve this cold case. That is, she will solve it 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 Truly Devious makes a surprise return. The past has crawled out of its grave, and someone has gotten away with murder. Truly Devious is the first novel in a murder-mystery trilogy by New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson.

Maureen Johnson is the #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of nineteen young adult novels, including the Truly Devious series, the Shades of London series, Suite Scarlett, and 13 Little Blue Envelopes. Her collaborative books include Ghosts of the Shadow Market (with Cassandra Clare), Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village (illustrated by Jay Cooper), as well as Let It Snow (with John Green and Lauren Myracle), which was also a hit feature film on Netflix. Her books have sold more than three million copies worldwide and have been published in more than thirty countries. She has been nominated for two Edgar Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, a Nebula Award, was a World Book Day author in the UK in 2014, and has been nominated for or won dozens of YALSA, state library, media and readers' choice awards. She lives in New York City.