The Box in the Woods

Overall rating: 3.5⭐️ (rounded up)

Stevie is pulled into another cold case. She has to attend a summer camp with her friends to solve the mystery. This one is a standalone case within the Truly Devious series, and takes place after the events of the first 3 books, aka the Ellingham mystery.

I did enjoy reading this and was very interested in the mystery, but this was my least favorite of the series. The main reason for this is because the solving of the mystery relied on just a single piece of evidence turning up. There was no way for you to follow along and try to reason towards a solution. And that's personally the main thing I enjoy in mysteries. There are a few other aspects of the ending that don't feel as satisfying as they could. Also, I just didn't find this one as snarky/funny as the other ones.

Despite that, until we got to the ending, I quite enjoyed reading this. It got me hooked from the very beginning, and had me guessing. It's a very different setting than the rest of the series, but has most of the main crew of characters. It was great to see all the characters together again. I especially enjoyed seeing a lot more of Nate.

Overall this one felt less like a mystery and more like a YA adventure. There's more of a looming danger and tricky situations the characters get stuck in. Which depending on what you're looking for could be more fun than the previous books.

As far as the mystery goes, while it's more straightforward compared to the other three books,it's still a head scratcher. I was actually really interested in the characters from the past from the very first chapter which made me very invested in the resolution of the mystery as well.