VERY DANGEROUS THINGS

Teenage criminology students find themselves investigating what should have been a fake murder mystery.

Every year, the criminology program at J. Everett High hosts its Grand Game, which tests students’ crime-solving abilities. This year’s winning team will be awarded $30,000, an enticing amount for best friends Mexican American Dulce Castillo and Japanese American Emi Nakamura, who plan to visit Golden Age mystery novelist Dorothy L. Sayers’ home in England after they graduate. Puerto Rican classmate Xavier Torres is assigned to play this year’s murder victim, so the student body isn’t shocked when his white ex-girlfriend, Sierra Fox, rushes into the cafeteria to announce that Xavier is dead. But the game becomes a tragic reality when everyone realizes that Xavier really is dead—and Sierra appears to be his killer. Sierra believes insightful and introspective Dulce is the only person who can solve Xavier’s murder and clear her name, but the girls have been estranged ever since a traumatic dispute over the circumstances surrounding Dulce’s mother’s death. At first, Dulce refuses to help, but when another classmate turns up dead, Dulce sets aside her resentment toward Sierra to find Xavier’s real murderer before anyone else gets hurt. A smattering of nuanced suspects and interstitial flashback chapters offer readers ample opportunities to form their own theories. But the complicated interpersonal relationships between seemingly unrelated characters reveal the most compelling secrets.

A satisfyingly chilling mystery with a relatable amateur sleuth.