strange and random happenstance: Albert Ellingham

The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson
Published by: Katherine Tegen Books
Publication Date: January 21st, 2020
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Dr. Irene Fenton might have been onto something before her recent immolation. As the Ellingham expert and the author of Truly Devious: The Ellingham Murders her hunches shouldn't be taken with a grain of salt. She believed there was a codicil to Albert Ellingham's will that stipulated that whoever found his daughter Alice, alive or dead, would inherent a large fortune so long as they were not members of Ellingham Academy's school board or somehow involved in her disappearance. And while Call Me Charles, the head of Ellingham Academy, informs Stevie that the codicil does not exist let alone mention the sum of ten million dollars Stevie has to wonder; a codicil would account for the crime spree on campus and it's environs. Why else were Hayes Major, Ellie Walker, and Dr. Irene Fenton killed in freak accidents? No one who was alive when the crime was perpetrated back in the thirties is alive today. Even the likelihood of Alice being alive and well is slim to none. So it comes down to the oldest motive in the world, greed. Someone believes in the codicil and they are willing to kill for it. But Stevie's life is in free fall. Her possibly, maybe boyfriend David has gotten himself beaten up in an attempt to derail his father's presidential ambitions. Her friends are dead. And yet she can't waste any brainpower on anything that isn't the case. It is consuming her. Much as Ellingham Academy is about to be consumed by snow. This blizzard is a once in a century storm and while Ellingham Academy was built to withstand the rigors of a Vermont winter this one might be too much to handle. The school is being evacuated and, due to all the recent tragedies, it will not be welcoming the students back after the storm clears. Ellingham Academy is closing it's doors. But Stevie isn't going anywhere. The case is here so she has to be here. Which means she's staying behind. Which means all her friends along with Dr. Fenton's nephew Hunter are staying behind. They have a killer to catch, a mystery to solve, and a presidential campaign to derail. It might be a lot for anyone else, but for Stevie and her friends it's just another day at Ellingham Academy. It's time to gather the suspects and bring her best Agatha Christie game face. She's about to solve the crime of the century. And who knows, maybe get a codicil conquest...

While this does nicely tie together all the loose threads and captures all the red herrings that Maureen Johnson has tossed about over three books I can't help but feel this volume was a little too contrived. I mean, I know that this series is about a bunch of overachieving teens who solve true crimes and build Rube Goldberg machines for fun, so it's not exactly grounded in reality, but the whole convenience of the blizzard and their absurd hiding out to avoid detection leading up to the denouement felt more Scooby-Doo than Hercule Poirot. But now that I start to think about Scooby-Doo way more than I ever have before, isn't it basically the same setup of an Agatha Christie novel with the pulling off of the mask being the revealing of the culprit in just a cheesier manner? OK, I'm totally now spiraling and rethinking everything about my life with these thoughts, meaning, I've never felt closer to Stevie. I'm with you there girl. Let's spiral together. I mean, I'd accepted the Shakespearean nature of Scooby-Doo thanks to Eddie Izzard, but this is a whole new way of thinking. And maybe I just shouldn't dwell. Maybe I should embrace the Scooby-Doo quality and say that The Hand on the Wall felt a tad trite and that's what's getting me. Because a lot of this book really works and as someone who was watching Scooby-Doo since before she could walk despite never bothering to actually think about it's story structure Maureen Johnson did something unexpected. She surprised me. When I read murder mysteries I almost always figure it out. My mind is built for puzzles and I just put two and two together. Even when I don't figure it out when the killer is revealed I'm kind of like not surprised but accepting, like, oh, this makes sense so of course they are the killer. I knew from about two pages in that Albert Ellingham's right hand man George Marsh orchestrated the whole thing. It was obvious. And the reasoning behind this was I was sure that he was Alice's father and that he and Iris were having an affair. But here's where it got deliciously complicated. George was Alice's father. He just didn't know. What's more Iris wasn't Alice's mother. Flora Robinson was. Bait and switch and I love it! It also adds the wonderful twist that while Stevie figured out everything, down to Alice's parentage, she isn't eligible to get the reward from the codicil, which was real! Why? Because Alice's DNA doesn't match either Ellingham. Because, well, it wouldn't. Genius.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments

Labels: Agatha Christie, Albert Ellingham, Blizzard, Codicil, Deaths, Eddie Izzard, Ellingham Academy, Hercule Poirot, Last Will, Maureen Johnson, Scooby-Doo, Shakespearean, Stevie Bell, Summer School, The Hand on the Wall, 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.