Book: Nine Liars
Author: Maureen Johnson
Pages: 457
Read on: Kindle
Read in: ~5 hours
Plot Summary: Senior year at Ellingham Academy for Stevie Bell isn’t going well. Her boyfriend, David, is studying in London. Her friends are obsessed with college applications. With the cold case of the century solved, Stevie is adrift. There is nothing to distract her from the questions pinging around her brain—questions about college, love, and life in general.
Relief comes when David invites Stevie and her friends to join him for study abroad, and his new friend Izzy introduces her to a double-murder cold case. In 1995, nine friends from Cambridge University went to a country house and played a drunken game of hide-and-seek. Two were found in the woodshed the next day, murdered with an ax.
The case was assumed to be a burglary gone wrong, but one of the remaining seven saw something she can’t explain. This was no break-in. Someone’s lying about what happened in the woodshed.
Seven suspects. Two murders. One killer still playing a deadly game.
Things I Liked:
1. I really enjoy Maureen Johnson's books. I've read and reviewed her Truly Devious Series and I was excited to read Nine Liars as soon as I heard about it! The premise seemed really interesting- two brutal murders in a group of nine close friends at a manor house in the country! Just the perfect kind of cold case that I like- group dynamics, secrets, a killer still on the loose.
2. 'The Nines'- the group of nine friends from Cambridge, who in 1995 had gone down to one of their friends' country manor house, were well sketched out. We get to know almost each of them fairly well as well as get to see their group dynamics and relationships. This is, especially, important because two out of these nine people get murdered over that weekend in 1995 and so, knowing these characters and their interpersonal relationships is important for readers to form some hypotheses as to who the killer could be and why the two people were killed.
3. This is a fairly fast-paced book and there is a lot happening so as not to bore you. Stevie and her friends are in London and they've told school that they're travelling for educational purposes, so, they have to submit daily reports of where they've been and what they've learnt. Things are hectic in a chaotic sort of way but once Stevie starts investigating the cold case from 1995, things move pretty quickly.
4. The investigation process was interesting and realistic. Clues were not easily obtained and information of what happened the night of the murder- who was where and when- had to be pieced together, which Stevie does a great job of! There is, also, a present day crime related to the cold case and how Stevie connects everything together is nicely done as well.
5. The killer is not easy to guess. The motive is not very evident to the readers and so, the reveal of the killer is a bit out-of-the-blue but totally believable and plausible. If you guessed who the killer is, let us know how to arrived at this person! :)
Things I Didn't Like:
1. There are a lot of touristy details about London. We get a crash course in British history and a lot of pages are dedicated to the kids (Stevie and pals) sightseeing and going to various museums and the like. I can understand why these chapters were necessary but I did not enjoy them.
2. I wish there was a little more peek into the dynamics of The Nine. We know some things about them and the interpersonal relationships but not enough for readers to make an educated guess as to who the killer could be. Not a big deal breaker but just something that could be improved upon.
Rating: 4/ 5
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