Hello! I am Laura Stewart here to review Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson for in the stacks.

Truly Devious is book one of a series set in Vermont at the Ellingham Academy, a school for the brightest thinkers. Entrance to this academy is only for the elite, and our heroine Stevie Bell is accepted into the academy based on her true crime and cold case solving expertise.

Stevie sets out to solve the kidnapping of the founder’s wife and daughter, a twenty-year-old cold case. Riddles, secret passages, and mysteries abound for Stevie while she endeavors to solve the old crime. The past comes alive and strikes into the present; Stevie must use her brains to keep her new-found friends safe. After twenty years, Truly Devious has made a re-appearance at the school and murder has once again found a student at Ellingham Academy – one of Stevie’s housemates.

Stevie is a delightful, quirky girl, a modern-day Nancy Drew, who deals with anxiety while solving crimes. Her friends all have normal teen issues and stick together to help Stevie figure out the puzzles. The book ends satisfactorily, yet still sets up the next mystery in the series with plenty of foreshadowing.