Book Review - Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious
Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
Published by: Katherine Tegen Books
Publication Date: January 16th, 2018
Format: Kindle, 432 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)
Ellingham Academy is known to an elite few in academia for it's unique approach to learning while it is known to everyone who is a true crime aficionado for Truly Devious. Albert Ellingham was rich, eccentric, and a true original. So what do rich, eccentric men do? They carve out the side of a mountain in Vermont and open a school to encourage unique thinking and a love of the game with their home being the crown jewel of the campus that holds parties worthy of Jay Gatsby. But rich men have enemies and Ellingham Academy became the scene of one of the most notorious unsolved crimes of the twentieth century. On April 13th, 1936, Albert's wife Iris and daughter Alice went for a drive and never returned. There was a phone call, a ransom demand, it was paid, a young student, Dottie Epstein, went missing, another phone call, more ransom demanded, it was paid again, Dottie and Iris's bodies were found, a local man became the scapegoat for the murders but all believed he was innocent, Alice was never seen again. And then there was the letter signed "Truly, Devious." In 1938 Albert Ellingham died in a tragic boating accident with his confidant George Marsh. The Truly Devious case has never been solved. Surprisingly, in all the years since the tragedy, Ellingham Academy is still flourishing, not letting the past blight the present. They still look for the best and the brightest to offer a unique and tailored two year education. Stevie Bell is part of the incoming class. Who would have thought that Stevie, a 16-year-old from Pittsburgh raised by right wing conservatives who isn't the most stellar of students would be at Ellingham academy rubbing elbows and sharing digs with authors and internet famous actors and solving the Truly Devious case? Because that is why she is there, that is why she was accepted, she said she was going to solve Truly Devious. And Stevie must be doing something right because the more she investigates the more odd things happen, and soon tragedy will strike Ellingham Academy again. Can Stevie solve a cold case when a current case is threatening her safety and sanity? And will she ever see a moose?
Truly Devious has a split personality disorder. The historic crime is witty and literary and has allusions to Dorothy Parker and F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Lindbergh kidnapping, while the modern half is oozing YA angst the likes of which I haven't seen since I read the dreck that Cassandra Clare calls "writing." And OMG I just looked up Maureen Johnson and she wrote for The Bane Chronicles and Ghosts of the Shadow Market and Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy and is friends with Cassandra Clare! Life actually makes sense! I wasn't just losing my mind. Well, I'm probably still losing my mind but not in regards to this. The problem of this split in the narrative is that I wasn't yet invested in Stevie and her angst and her feelings for David and her panic disorder and instead was just waiting for the story to take me back to the thirties. I wanted to be in that glittering world. I wanted to immerse myself in the Truly Devious crime. I wanted to solve it along with Stevie, only I wanted to do it without really learning anything about her. Which isn't really fair to Stevie, but that's just how it is. But then again, Maureen Johnson doesn't really play fair either. The main complaint I've seen with regard to this book is that the mystery isn't solved. Not the historic or the present day crime are in any way concluded. We are just left with more questions than answers. Which, at the time, only slightly irked me. I had gotten the book from the library and as soon as I finished it I was able to buy the boxed set and was able to continue reading the trilogy so as to solve the crime. But when I told a friend of mine how much I loved the series, which he eventually agreed with, he pointed out the lack of resolution in the first book and how this just wasn't done. And the more I thought about it the more I agreed. I didn't expect the historical mystery to be resolved but the modern mystery needed to be at the very least. I was able to binge these books one right after the other, but imagine having to wait a year between each installment? That could lead to some very disgruntled readers. Thankfully as you read this review, know that you can, over the course of three books, learn whodunit.
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