Amy is a senior at the prestigious private boarding school, Meadowbrook Academy. It’s Senior Week, just before the start of the school year, and Amy and her best friend and roommate Sarah are ready for boathouse parties, soccer practice, and making every aspect of their last year at Meadowbrook epic. So what if they got into an argument at last night’s party? Amy and Sarah always make up. But not this time. Amy wakes up the morning after the party to discover that Sarah and her boyfriend Ryan have been brutally murdered. All at once Amy’s idyllic senior year has become a nightmare as she struggles with her grief, the suspicion from the police and her fellow students, and her determination to find out who did this.
Liz is decidedly not one of the cool kids. A scholarship kid, Liz has never felt like she fits in with the rest of the student body. She has her work as the Editor of the school newspaper, and her determination to win a highly competitive journalism competition that could get her into the best programs in the country. She knows that breaking the case could be her best chance of winning. But as the school administration attempts to shield the students and the school from the prying eyes of the national media, Liz finds out how far she’ll go in the pursuit of the truth, and what others will do to try and stop her.
I thought this was fine. It’s fast paced, and there are a few red herrings that make it fun along the way. The final reveal and confrontation is pretty good, and I wasn’t mad about it. The characters do make a lot of dumb choices along the way, and only so many can be excused by their tender age. It’s no Agatha Christie, but would be a fun intro to the whodunit genre for a young teenager.