Truly Devious

2.5/5. This is one of those books where I go in kinda knowing what I'm getting myself into but also hoping that it might be something that defies my expectations. It did not. I can't tell if it's a fault on the book or on myself because I'm reading a genre that I already know I don't prefer because I'm not a fan of the tropes (which this book has in spades).

The book jumps between two different timelines: one in the 1930s when the original mystery happens where Iris Ellingham and her daughter Alice are kidnapped, and then the other one in modern-day when we see our protagonist Stevie Bell attend Ellingham Academy apparently because she's so obsessed with crime investigation and can't wait to solve that cold case from the 30s. This premise in itself is not bad, and I appreciated the way Johnson juxtaposes the information reveal in each timeline. Presumably everything that had happened in the 30s was already known to Stevie from the beginning of the book, but the information is kept unspoken and slowly revealed to us the readers simultaneously on both timelines so there's some bit of suspense there.

I was also much more interested in whatever was going on in the 1930s timeline because that is really where all the action and suspense was. There barely is anything happening in the modern-day one except a whole bunch of YA tropes that I couldn't care less about. I wasn't a fan of the Stevie and the “not like other girls” vibe happening there. I wasn't a fan of how she kept thinking she was smarter than her parents, and also insisting that her parents wanted her to be “normal” and “go to high school” and “enjoy prom” and all that. In trying to probably “rep” the bookworm-y girl loves an “obscure” hobby like forensic investigation and who has never dated before high school, you don't also need to cancel people who do want to just look forward to prom and date - I don't feel like it needs to be a competition or that one is better than the other.

Also, what was with that ending? I know this book was part of a larger series, but I expect at least that the central mystery of the book would have some kind of resolution by the end. It did not. It ended so abruptly that I legit wondered if I had missed something important when I was listening to my audiobook but apparently I hadn't. Most mystery series I've read may have some kind of overarching background mystery that spans multiple books, but at least the core mystery of the book is solved by the end. This one apparently is making the core mystery span across the trilogy which is bewildering to me and kinda makes me not want to continue.