Stevie Bell has been accepted at the famous private school Ellingham Academy, established by an eccentric millionaire in the 1930s. Stevie arrives with plans of starting on the path of becoming a murder investigator and she plans to start with the cold case of the kidnapping and murders that happened on the Ellingham estate in 1936. But as Stevie begins to dig into the case, another death on campus pulls her into a separate investigation that will have much larger repercussions.

I'm usually a big Maureen Johnson but this book didn't quite work for me. The mystery is really well constructed and told in parallel timelines between Stevie at the school in the present and the events of the kidnapping and murders in 1936. I particularly enjoyed the 1930s narrative but I had a rough time with the contemporary story with Stevie. I just had a hard time connecting with Stevie's character, which left me feeling pretty distant from the novel in general. The book ends on a cliffhanger but the distance was enough that I don't care enough to find out what happened next and won't be reading the rest of the series. ( )

Takes a bit to give in to the sort of ridiculous setting, but it does get going in the second half. The problem with the love interest is that he's not at all interesting. I believe Stevie is into him, but when they have their romcom low moment, I didn't care that he was mad at her and was annoyed that she moped about it.

Is Leo supposed to be gay? There's nail polish, and at one point he calls himself a friend of Dorothy (he's referring to Dorothy Parker, not Oz), which (probably) would've been anachronistic. ( )

This was really good! Didn't realize it was YA until i finished good. I really wish I had already put in a hold on the second book! ( )

2.5 stars ( )

I really enjoyed this book, but if I'd known that it didn't have an ending (unless To Be Continued counts as an ending) (it's a MYSTERY NOVEL, y'all) (And come to think of it, NEITHER mystery is solved) I never would have read it. I'll probably just look up the resolution online somewhere because I'm so irritated.

4 stars for (half a) story, 1 star for the bait and switch of pretending it's a fully formed novel, so I split the difference at 2 stars. ( )