Ok, I loved playing the Clue boardgame growing up, so this was just a perfect cozy mystery! I loved the way the author played with the traditional names -- Scarlett, Mustard, Green, Peacock, Plum, Orchid -- and created characters out of them and the settings. It was just excellent!
Keeping in mind that everyone has something to hide (and they all manage to keep some secrets throughout, which is just astonishing and lays the foundation for further books, I'm sure!), it's set in a private boarding school, Blackbrook Academy, which gets isolated from the mainland by a terrible winter storm.
It's a multi-POV book, one from each of the "suspects." It starts by introducing the POV of Orchid McKee, who's really named anything but Orchid and is something of a child actress hiding out from a stalker at the obscure boarding school, hoping to never be tracked down. (She is.)
Vaughn Green has to trudge from his home in the local town across icy waters and other obstacles to get to Blackbrook, where he's a student -- and janitor. His secret is a twin who moonlights at the school occasionally as Vaughn and takes classes, too.
Scarlett Mistry is next, the narcissistic, Machiavellian top-nerd at the school with a bit of an unhealthy alliance with Finn Plum, who comes next, the resident super-secretive student scientist who's using the school's labs off-hours to create the next-greatest invention that'll make him rich beyond his dreams.
Samuel "Mustard" Maestor is a military-school reject who ends up at Blackbrook right before the storm hits. Built like a linebacker, he's not just muscle -- there's a working brain in there, too. An investigator's brain.
And Beth "Peacock" is the school jock with no social skills whatsoever who gets pegged for the murder of the headmaster early on, so it can't possibly be her, right? Right?
The storm forces them into Tudor House, or Mrs. White's dorm. She the doting, matronly dorm mother who's lived there since she was a school girl back in prehistoric days. And there's two other girls, Karlee and Kaylee, the "joined at the hip" types who are there mostly for distraction and screaming. The school's headmaster is found murdered in the conservatory, a quasi-greenhouse. This comes almost 100 pages in, but I didn't mind the long set up at all, knowing the board game as well as I do.
The salaried janitor leaves almost immediately after the murder is discovered to go get help, on the off-chance local first responders aren't busy saving lives in the horrid storm. They are. No LEO's ever arrive, even at the end. It's up to the kids to solve this murder on their own.
I won't spoil it! It was a first-rate who-dun-it and I loved it and am going to ask my library to buy the sequels. Enjoy.
I'm so hooked on this YA murder mystery series! I loved this second installment, so much so I asked my library to purchase the third.
This time, the storm that besieged Blackbrook Academy is over and the students -- Orchid, Vaughn (hint: get good at spotting his twin brother Oliver), Scarlett, Beth (Peacock), Finn (Plum) and Mustard -- are all in various stages of cleaning up from the first murder (of Headmaster Boddy by Tudor House's matron, Mrs. White, if you remember).
Orchid's the Hollywood star with a stalker -- still stalking her at Blackbrook. This time, her accounts are drained. But Vaughan is there to support her…except when he's not Vaughn. When he's his twin, Oliver, he's full-on jerk. With access to the tunnels where the school janitor, Rusty, is found murdered.
The same tunnels where Finn hid his revolutionary science breakthrough (the one he's unwilling to share a patent and profit with Blackbrook's owners, Curry Chemical). Mustard braves the tunnels to salvage Finn's work in the most delightful romantic gesture of the book!
In a seeming unrelated move, Beth "Peacock" has hired a life coach to get a grip on her explosive, violent temper and continue training in the worst of circumstances -- living in a flooded Blackbrook. Vaughn is torn. Has Oliver, finally, made his move? Is his twin Rusty's murderer?
There's a second murder, which I can't possibly reveal, or I'd give all the plot twists away.
Just know the writing is fantastic, from all these different POV characters, and each is as unique and genuine as can be (under murderous circumstances!).
I loved the way the story unfolded and felt the plot was masterfully done. Enjoy!
I didn't think it was possible to love a third book in a series as much as I loved this one! It was so full of surprises, including the delightful, possible-in-a-board-game-way multiple endings. I love it when publishers allow authors to play with stories creatively like this.
After so many people have been murdered at Blackbrook Academy, including the headmaster, the janitor, and a psycho stalker after child actress Emily Pryce in hiding (Orchid), it's downright amazing the kids make it to prom.But they do, and boy, is it a bloody ride.
This time, Scarlett finds the first victim -- Dr. Brown, the school's new Headmaster (mistress?) and member of Curry Chemical's board of directors. It appears that she's dead of natural causes. Propped behind the velvet curtains in the office? At Blackbrook? Yeah, right. What are the chances? Not good.
But that's the official story. Dr. Brown is a close family friend to Blackbrook student Tanner Curry, Mustard's roommate and the son of Curry Chemical's CEO. The company more or less runs Blackbrook and profits from the students' brilliance. Plum is desperate to keep Curry Chemical from getting the formula he devised in Blackbrook's labs, but he's also kinda desperate to hook up with Mustard. Again. If Mustard would just acknowledge him. At all.
At the end of the last book, you know one of the Green twins is dead -- gone over the edge of a cliff in a car with Peacock. But you're never 100% sure which boy died, not really, because they're practically interchangeable and they've been fooling everyone for years, scamming the school so both could get an education on one scholarship.
Peacock, who survived the crash, is knocked out of school sports. Literally. She now gets around on a scooter that seriously slows her down and tries her patience.
Orchid assumes Vaughn died in the crash and puts the boy she kissed on a pedestal, producing (with Scarlett's considerable technical help) his music (a whopping 5 songs) to great social media acclaim. They milk them for all they can.
Wracked by guilt (finally), Orchid decides to track down Vaughn's family and offer them the proceeds, $12,000, or all the money they've made from the music they've published without Vaughn's or his estate's permission, and finds … Oliver. Vaughn's sarcastic, twisted, and possibly murderous twin. Or so she -- and everyone else -- thinks.
Oliver promptly uses the money to pay Mrs. White's bail (she murdered Headmaster Boddy in book one, remember?) and get her out of jail.
It all comes to a head when Tanner is found dead in the dorm room and Mustard is accused of his murder. Right before prom. Which Scarlett has spent waay too much time planning to cancel.
I can't reveal anything more, as there are multiple endings to explore and it was just such a fun, rollicking romp to read!
Enjoy!
