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Truly devious

A nerve-wracking mystery novel written by Maureen Johnson. The author has crafted the world over three books , Truly Devious , The Vanishing Stair and The Hand On The Wall .
Truly devious series is a boarding school mystery that flashes between two timelines, the present and past.  
Ellingham academy is a famous private school founded by Albert Ellingham who was an early twentieth century tycoon for brightest thinkers , inventors and artists . He wanted to make this academy a place full of riddles, twisting pathways and gardens where learning is a game.Shortly after the school opened, his wife ,Iris Ellingham and his daughter, Alice Ellingham were kidnapped. The only clue to this mystery was the riddle written using the cuttings of a magazine which listed the methods of murders, signed with a scary pseudonym "truly devious".This incident becomes one of the great unsolved mysteries of American History.
Years later, a true-crime afficionado and teen sleuth Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy. She was originally drawn to this prestigious academy by its dark history when Albert Ellingham's wife and daughter were kidnapped and he spent his entire life in tracking down her daughter , whose body was never found. She is drawn into this case and has prepared herself to gather clues and make some connections to find a lead, but she was never expecting the events of the past would start to play again as truly devious makes a surprise return and the death revisits Ellingham Academy.A student is dead and everyone deems the tragedy as an accident but Stevie suspects otherwise.
Stevie's anxiety is dealt with utmost care, her contradictions , as someone who wants to solve murder mysteries despite having panic attacks is addressed tenderly. The author further manages to explore real world politics alongside the mystery and has woven the two together in effective ways.The story raises more questions than answers, leaving the readers hoping the author has another entry up her clever sleeves. 

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