This missing person/murder mystery kept me reading and guessing up to the end. A small, cliff-side town in California is the setting--and when a wealthy girl goes missing, her former best friend and a classmate investigate to try and clear the name of her boyfriend, who is jailed for the crime. One of the detectives is Alice, a rich girl with neglectful parents and a history of running away. The other is Iris, who needs the reward money and has an abusive past that she doesn't want to share with anyone. Together the two girls follow in the footsteps of Agatha Christie, tracking down leads, sneaking around, acquiring questionable evidence, and generally being sneaky and brilliant. I will definitely recommend this to my 8th grade mystery lovers and have it in my middle school library, but there are elements that make it less appropriate for younger middle schoolers. Highly recommended for fans of
The Inheritance Games,
Truly Devious, and the Karen McManus mysteries.
