New York Times and USA Today bestseller!
New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson delivers the witty and pulse-pounding conclusion to the Truly Devious series as Stevie Bell solves the mystery that has haunted Ellingham Academy for over 75 years.
Ellingham Academy must be cursed. Three people are now dead. One, a victim of either a prank gone wrong or a murder. Another, dead by … One, a victim of either a prank gone wrong or a murder. Another, dead by misadventure. And now, an accident in Burlington has claimed another life. All three in the wrong place at the wrong time. All at the exact moment of Stevie’s greatest triumph . . .
She knows who Truly Devious is. She’s solved it. The greatest case of the century.
At least, she thinks she has. With this latest tragedy, it’s hard to concentrate on the past. Not only has someone died in town, but David disappeared of his own free will and is up to something. Stevie is sure that somehow—somehow—all these things connect. The three deaths in the present. The deaths in the past. The missing Alice Ellingham and the missing David Eastman. Somewhere in this place of riddles and puzzles there must be answers.
Then another accident occurs as a massive storm heads toward Vermont. This is too much for the parents and administrators. Ellingham Academy is evacuated. Obviously, it’s time for Stevie to do something stupid. It’s time to stay on the mountain and face the storm—and a murderer.
In the tantalizing finale to the Truly Devious trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson expertly tangles her dual narrative threads and ignites an explosive end for all who’ve walked through Ellingham Academy.
Praise for the Truly Devious series:
“Readers, hang tight: there’s one more round to come, and if the signs are right, it’ll be to die for.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The Agatha Christie-like ecosystem pairs with lacerating contemporary wit, and alternating past and present scenes makes for a multilayered, modern detective story.” —New York Times Book Review
“Remember the first time reading Harry Potter and knowing it was special? There’s that same sense of magic in the introduction of teen Sherlock-in-training Stevie Bell.” —USA Today (four stars)
“Be still, my Agatha-Christie-loving beating heart.” —Bustle
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I’m a fan of the entire Truly Devious trilogy. Read Hand in one fell swoop–I couldn’t stop. No spoilers review–very tightly plotted, satisfactory thread wrap-ups all around. I enjoyed these characters–love Stevie, but have a soft spot for Nate, the writer who hit it huge with his first novel and is terrified that his follow-up will stink
Wow…. my mind has been blown by this series…… This is the final book in the series…. or it was, now there will be more but not set in the school
But it was the final book at one point and it really reads like it as well.
This will be a short review because it is the final book and I don’t want to spoil this for anyone who has not read it.
I made no secret that I don’t like Stevie much, she is just so full of herself at times. Every time a guy looks at her, she thinks he wants her. Or she is the only one who can figure this or that out. Stuff like that, she is pretty mature for her age for the most part. Of course, she has her moments but I mean she is still pretty young.
But as I also mentioned before … even with me not being Stevie’s biggest fan I still loved this book/series.
This book starts pretty much where the last one ended, with one mystery solved … or so we thought and a whole bunch of new ones with all the accidents that have happened the last few weeks. Everything comes together in this book and with some pretty big shocking things that are being discovered along the way.
Stevie and her friends must now more than ever stick together and work together to unmask the murderer among them.
David and Nate are still some of my favorite characters in this series….and keep Stevie a bit more grounded as well.
I look forward to seeing more in this series and I hope we get to see all her friends as well… But it sounds like we will.
This book was pretty fast paced and I loved it… The ending was really good and surprising.
Again, while I loved this book and series, I have to give it 4 because of Stevie, she just a bit much for me at times.
Overall, this was such a great mystery series with a mix of old and new perfectly blended and well written. I loved how the past was written in and how it blended and fit it to our modern world. Well done and I’m very much looking forward to the next book in the series.
A fantastic, non-stop, stay-up-all-night-to-finish finale to a series I’ve just absolutely loved. This book is a classic who-done-it mystery at its best, and it hurtles along to the perfect conclusion with its many clues, secrets and what-ifs in just the right way.
This was a really great and fun ending to this series. When everything comes out I love how it all the pieces fit together. These characters were truly wonderful and I’m so sad to see that its all over. I loved getting two mysteries in the past and present. So good.
The Truly Devious series is amazing. Lots of twists and turns. I had to wait for a digital copy quite awhile, but it was worth the wait. Love boarding schools as a background – hooked on them for some reason. Maybe because of the differences in the characters that come together.
A very satisfying conclusion to a great trilogy! If you enjoy murder mysteries set in boarding schools, then I highly recommend this series.
4.5 stars
The conclusion to the Truly Devious series was truly devious.
The quirky characters are back and Stevie hopefully will finally solve the crime of the century.
I was suspicious of a few of them.
A major snow storm and they are stuck at the school just adds atmosphere to a great story.
I truly enjoyed this series.
I’d give this a trillion stars if it was possible!!! Stevie Bell is the most AWESOME teenage detective!!! I loved this trilogy so so much!!!! If you enjoy YA MYSTERY with a bit of ROMANCE, then you will freaking LOVE this trilogy!!! I loved how it ended!!! I bought the standalone, The Box In The Woods, which is where Stevie Bell takes on another mystery!!! I’m super excited to read it!!
I feel like this trilogy hasn’t been discovered enough!! Maureen Johnson is a new author to me, but a definite favorite now!! She surprised me, shocked me, entertained me and had me swooning at times! I HIGHLY recommend that you check out this trilogy!! I bought the books, but it’s on Audible too!! You will love being in Stevie Bell’s head!!!
A very well written YA mystery, detective series! It was my pleasure to read the series… I just started the Box in the Woods! Excellent characters..
I love how this all wrapped up! It was such a great trilogy. I loved it! Stevie is such an awesome character. I loved the mystery and all the twists. I would recommend these!
The third book in the “Truly Devious” series gives finality to all of the mysteries that had occurred. I enjoyed Stevie as a character and teenage detective. She is cunning and the way her mind picked up on pieces really kept the plot moving and me on my toes. Maureen Johnson writes such a descriptive setting that a snowstorm on the horizon leaves the reader concerned for the characters as it should be. I still also really enjoyed the dual timeline and solving a mystery from 1936 at the same time as the present day mystery.
The first book in this series was meh. The second book was wow! The third book fell right back into meh.
Nate was my favorite character and he barely made any appearances in this installment and I think that was one of my biggest gripes. David is as annoying as ever—what an awful love interest (still rooting for her & Nate to get together oops). The mystery solve was not satisfying… It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t wow.
I liked the scenes where her & David were stuck in the tunnel—but that’s about the most exciting thing that happens. Everything else is speculation and slow building, nothing of consequence really happens. I feel like this book could have been summed up a lot quicker and bunched into the second installment as a duology; I guess I feel like the author was scrambling to up the word count to make this is a complete novel.
I can’t imagine there being another book in this series, and I’m debating whether I’ll pick it up when it’s released. I enjoy Stevie’s POV and I’m still holding out scenes with Nate in them, so I think I’ll probably sucker in and read it.
The Hand on the Wall is a fine ending, but that’s really all it is. Fine. I was enamored with the first two books in the series, which had plenty of things for me to love: a plucky young protagonist, an interesting and irreverent narrative voice, an eclectic cast of characters, and a gorgeous setting for a murder to take place. Stevie was an easy protagonist to support and get attached to; smart and witty, but still childish enough for her to fit perfectly within the YA sphere. This book was disappointing. Standing perhaps on its own I would’ve liked it more, but with the other two books in the series being such standout mysteries, it’s a shame the book couldn’t stick the conclusion.
We left Stevie in Ellingham Academy with more dead bodies and a bigger mystery than ever before. Her mentor, Dr. Fenton, was killed in a house fire that left her nephew homeless, only just after sharing with Stevie her belief that there was a codicil in Albert Ellingham’s will that left a huge amount of money to anyone who found Alice Ellingham or her body. Another body was Stevie’s friend Ellie, who Stevie had held semi-accountable for the death of Hayes in the first book. Whereas we spent the majority of the second book thinking that Ellie had escaped Ellingham and gone on the run, it turned out she had never escaped Ellingham at all; she had attempted to escape and instead gotten trapped in the maze of tunnels beneath the school and suffocated. All of these deaths are seeming accidents, but Stevie believes them murders that tie all the way back to the death and disappearance of Iris and Alice Ellingham, respectively. With Ellingham closing, Stevie makes the decision to stay and try and figure out the mystery herself in the middle of blizzard, trapped possibly in the same space as a murderer.
We return to the dual-perspective that I loved in the last two books, but this time failed me. With Stevie combating her problems in the present, Albert Ellingham and his compatriots deal with their own murder mystery in the past. This time, the Ellingham timeframe absolutely dominates the story, to the point where I felt like Stevie had absolutely nothing to do. Stevie spends a lot of this novel deciding to stay in the blizzard, thinking very hard about how suspicious things are, and arguing with her crappy boyfriend, but not solving mysteries or gathering clues or doing anything remotely detective-like. A lot of the exciting parts of the narrative, finding more about George Marsh’s motives and journey during the Iris/Alice plot, the laying of clues for a future detective to come along and find them, all of this is done during the parts of the narrative that take place in the past. And they were good parts! But realistically, this novel advertises itself as being a modern-day adventure, Stevie and her friends are the characters we get attached to, and all the action is happening in the present. We really needed more of her for this novel to feel satisfying, and in true detective novel fashion she does get her moment in the sun when she solves the mystery, but ultimately her involvement feels like too little, too late.
Now for my biggest problem in the book, for which I slashed an entire star for: David. Stevie’s on-and-off-again-kind-of boyfriend. My least favorite character in the entire series, murderers included. David is the son of Edward King, a famed conservative Senator in-universe, the equivalent of our Mitch McConnell. Hated, bigoted, and conniving, he’s alienated his son David, who is supposed to be his opposite and has since distanced himself. I was actually really interested in this storyline and thought it brought up a really great parent/child dynamic and problems with differences in generational ideologies, but it would’ve worked a lot better if David wasn’t such an ass. King and his son are ideological opposites: liberal and conservative, but they both come across as quite cruel. Stevie, in the last book, agrees to keep an eye on David for King in return for him ensuring her return to Ellingham. Essentially, to be a spy. However, she ultimately didn’t end up doing anything to David and the spying business was basically just an agreement she felt guilty about but culminated in nothing. Yet, in this book, David shuns her for it and treats her incredibly cruelly. He admits that nothing happened and that his father is a manipulative bastard! He literally tells Stevie nothing affected him and treats her like garbage for the majority of the story anyway. It felt horrible, like he was punishing her for something out of her control, and that kind of relationship is the last thing I want for our plucky protagonist. The guy sounds like someone I’d tase and run from.
In other plot points, nothing really stood out. I guessed the killer about midway through the book and it was a fun ending. Everything made sense, got tied together, old and new mysteries blended together, the ending was left on a positive but open note. I’ll still be reading the sequel, The Box in the Woods, because I really do enjoy this world, but after the first two books in the series really getting me invested in this mystery, the culmination felt dissatisfying. Ultimately, Johnson ended up trying to do too much with her split POV timelines and the balance got all out of alignment. Here’s to Stevie getting better endings (and better boyfriends) in the next book.
review blog
So if you’ve ever dreamed of attending a boarding school where they ‘get’ you, the Truly Devious trilogy will dampen that dream. I loved the remote school setting with a tragic history (read gothic). The Hand on the Wall finishes the trilogy and answers the question on how Stevie got into the school in the firsts place. I adore the other characters that she’s counting on to help her solve the mystery as well as just be a normal kid. As normal as she can be. Move over Nancy Drew – Stevie’s here.
Agatha Christie visits a New England boarding school in the Truly Devious trilogy from Maureen Johnson. Each book solves a piece of the mystery, and in this final book, all the threads come together. Each book is excellent–but be sure to read them in order!
A satisfying conclusion to a well-plotted series with a complicated female protagonist. I think the series is definitely worth a re-read in rapid succession.
Such a satisfying ending! If you haven’t read this series yet, I recommending getting all three at the same time, because you’re going to want to read them back to back. I loved all the twisty, mystery details, and I loved the school setting and all of Stevie’s friends. I don’t think she’s going to do another series with these characters, but I would read another for sure! These books are super funny and a little creepy and full of twisty mystery!
Maureen Johnson wraps up myriad mysteries, both past and present, in the superb conclusion to the Truly Devious series. As much as I loved the final book, I hated to leave Ellingham Academy and its intrepid teenage sleuth, molded in the grand tradition of Nancy Drew, but with modern skills and sensibilities. A truly great read!