A LONG STRETCH OF BAD DAYS

Small-town secrets provide steady fuel for an ambitious teen looking to secure a spot in a top journalism program.

Lydia Chass is enraged when she learns her high school guidance counselor’s oversight has jeopardized her graduation, and she threatens to expose his alcohol use disorder unless she’s permitted to quickly make up her missing history credit. Ever the plotter, she pulls in Bristal Jamison, a senior also in need of a credit for graduation, whose delinquent behavior and bad family reputation will put a sharper edge on On the Ground in Flyover Country, Lydia’s podcast about their hometown of Henley, Ohio, thus making it more likely to catch the eyes of Ivy League admissions officers. Bristal and Lydia’s emerging friendship and Lydia’s self-absorption and understanding of her own class privilege evolve realistically as the pair decide to focus on an unsolved homicide that occurred in the 1990s and was discovered during a devastating week in which Henley suffered both a tornado and flash flood—and that may not have been the only crime to take place. In this tightknit community, their sleuthing produces uncomfortable questions that lead back to people close to them in difficult ways. Wickedly comic dialogue and interesting characters—particularly wonderfully lewd feminist Bristal—will keep readers engaged through the many twists and turns. All main characters read White.

A clever and often darkly funny mystery.