http://mppl.org/services/teen-services/good-reads/?category=teens&list=Spotlight+On%3A+Mystery
List: Spotlight On: Mystery
Lying in the Deep
When her boyfriend leaves her for her best friend, Jade joins a semester long cruise program unaware that the two are also onboard, and when her ex-boyfriend is murdered and his new girlfriend goes missing, Jade must dig into her shipmates' lives to find the murderer and clear her name.
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We'll Never Tell
No one at Hollywood High knows who's behind We'll Never Tell--a viral YouTube channel where the anonymous creators trespass behind the scenes of LA's most intriguing locales. The team includes Casey, quiet researcher and trivia champ; JACOB, voice narrator and video editor, who is secretly dating Eddie, aspiring filmmaker; and Zoe, coder and breaking-and-entering extraordinaire. Now senior year is winding down, and with their lives heading in different directions, the YouTubers vow to go out with a bang. Their last episode will be filmed at the infamous Valentini "murder house," which has been left abandoned, bloodstained, and untouched since a shocking murder/suicide in 1972. When the teens break in, they capture epic footage. But someone trips an alarm, and it's a mad dash to get out before the police arrive--at which point they realize only three of them escaped instead of four. Jacob is still inside, slain and bleeding out. Is his attack connected to the historic murder, or is one of their crew responsible? A week of suspicions and cover-ups unfolds as Casey and her remaining friends try to stay alive long enough to solve murder mysteries past and present. If they do, their friendship may not survive. If they don't, the house will claim more victims.
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Missing Clarissa
In August 1999, dazzlingly popular cheerleader Clarissa Campbell disappeared from a party in the woods outside the rural town of Oreville, Washington. The police questioned her friends, her teachers, and the adults who knew her--who all had something to hide. Thanks to Clarissa's beauty, the mystery captured the attention of the nation. But with no leads and no body, the case soon grew cold. Despite the efforts of internet sleuths and true-crime aficionados, Clarissa has never been found--dead or alive. More than twenty years later, Oreville High School juniors and best friends Blair and Cameron start a true-crime podcast, determined to unravel the story of what--or who--happened to this rural urban legend. In the process they uncover a nest of dirty small-town secrets, the sordid truth of Clarissa's relationship with her charismatic boyfriend, and a high school art teacher turned small-town power broker who had a very good reason for wanting Clarissa dead. Such a good reason, in fact, that they might have to make him the highlight of their next episode... But does an ugly history with a missing girl make him guilty of murder? Or are two teenage girls about to destroy the life of an innocent man--and help the true killer walk free?
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Death at Morning House
The fire wasn't Marlowe Wexler's fault. Dates should be hot, but not hot enough to warrant literal firefighters. Akilah, the girl Marlowe has been in love with for years, will never go out with her again. No one dates an accidental arsonist. With her house-sitting career up in flames, it seems the universe owes Marlowe a new summer job, and that's how she ends up at Morning House, a mansion built on an island in the 1920s and abandoned shortly thereafter. It's easy enough, giving tours. Low risk of fire. High chance of getting bored talking about stained glass and nut cutlets and Prohibition. Oh, and the deaths. Did anyone mention the deaths? Maybe this job isn't such a gift after all. Morning House has a horrific secret that's been buried for decades, and now the person who brought her here is missing. All it takes is one clue to set off a catastrophic chain of events. One small detail, just like a spark, could burn it all down--if someone doesn't bury Marlowe first.
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The Grandest Game
Get ready for a new series that brings readers deeper into the lush, romantic, and puzzle-filled world of the Inheritance Games series, set a year after we last saw Avery and the Hawthornes. Seven tickets. An island of dreams. The chance of a lifetime. Welcome to the Grandest Game, an annual competition run by billionaire Avery Grambs and the four infamous Hawthorne brothers, whose family fortune she inherited. Designed to give anyone a shot at fame and fortune, this year's game requires one of seven golden tickets to enter. With millions on the line, those seven players will do whatever it takes to win. Some of the players are in it for the money. Some for power. Some for reasons all their own. Every single one of them has secrets. Amidst it all is Grayson Hawthorne, tasked with a vital role in this year's game. But as tensions rise and the mind-bending challenges push the players to their limits--physically, mentally, and emotionally--it soon becomes clear that not everyone is playing by the rules.
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Tell Me What Really Happened
When their friend vanishes during a camping trip down by Salvation Creek, four friends have a very different story to tell about what happened that night, in this gripping mystery told entirely through first-person interviews.
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The Headmaster's List
Eighteen-year-old Spencer Sandoval wishes she knew. As rumors swirl that her ex, Ethan, was the driver that fateful night, she can't bring herself to defend him. And their messy breakup has nothing to do with it - she can't remember anything from that night, not even what put her in that car with Ethan, Chris, and Tabby Hill, the new loner in school. Was it just a night out that went very wrong? And is it just a coincidence they were all part of Argyle's esteemed honor roll, the Headmaster's List? In a place ruled by pedigree and privilege, the answers can only come at a deadly price.
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Mystery Royale
The only thing sixteen-year-old Mullory Prudence has left of her mom is a warning: "Run if the strange finds you." But mysterious warnings don't pay the bills or help take care of her sick Gran. And they certainly don't make her miserable after-school job any more bearable. When unexpected letters start appearing in peculiar places--sealed in bags of dog food and hidden in the refrigerator--Mullory knows she should avoid them to heed her mother's warning, but her curiosity thinks otherwise.
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The Reappearance of Rachel Price
When her mother, who disappeared 16 years before, reappears while a true crime documentary about her case is being filmed, 18-year-old Bel, not buying her mom's unbelievable story about what happened to her, must uncover the real reason Rachel Price is back from the dead.
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The Forest Demands Its Due
Regent Academy has a long and storied history in Winslow, Vermont, as does the forest that surrounds it. The school is known for molding teens into leaders, but its history is far more nefarious. Seventeen-year-old Douglas Jones wants nothing to do with Regent's king-making; he's just trying to survive. But then a student is murdered and, for some reason, by the next day no one remembers him having ever existed, except for Douglas and the groundskeeper's son, Everett Everley. In his determination to uncover the truth, Douglas awakens a horror hidden within the forest, unearthing secrets that have been buried for centuries. A vengeful creature wants blood as payment for a debt more than three hundred years in the making--or it will swallow all of Winslow in darkness. And for the first time in his life, Douglas might have a chance to grasp the one thing he's always felt was missing: power. But if he's not careful, he will find out that power has a tendency to corrupt absolutely everything.
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Death in the Cards
When a high school tarot reader's latest client goes missing after a troubling reading, she must apply everything she has learned from her private investigator mother to solve a case of her own.
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No One Left But You
Things have been tough for newly out trans guy Max since his summer romance, Danny, turned into his bully. This year, his plan is to keep his head down and graduate. Things change when new It-girl Gloss becomes interested in him, an introverted skater kid, but Max blooms in the hothouse of her attention. Caught between romance and obsession, he'll do whatever it takes to keep her on his side: haircuts, makeovers, drugs, parties. When someone gets killed at a rager gone wrong, Max refuses to believe Gloss did it. Searching for the truth, Max veers dangerously close to being implicated.
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Under the Same Stars
Three timelines converge to unveil the mysterious disappearance of two girls during World War II.
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The Summer She Went Missing
Last summer, they searched for Audrey Covington. This summer, they'll search for the truth. Paige Redmond has always felt lucky to spend her summers in Clearwater Ridge, sunning at the waterfalls and partying at the mansions of the rich vacationers there. The family of her best friend, Audrey Covington, has one of these homes. And last year, when Paige finally got close with Audrey's gorgeous brother, Dylan, she was sure it would be the best summer ever. Except Audrey didn't seem quite like herself. Then one night, she didn't come home. Though Audrey wasn't the first girl to disappear in Clearwater Ridge, she left behind more lies than clues. Now, one summer later, her case has gone cold, and nobody, least of all Paige, can make sense of what happened. When Paige stumbles across a secret hidden in Audrey's room, however, it changes everything she thought she knew about last summer. She and Dylan set out on their own investigation, discovering things even the police don't know about the people of Clearwater Ridge. But tracking down missing girls - girls who might be beyond saving by now--means entering a world far darker than Paige has ever imagined.
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Dark Parts of the Universe
While playing an app-based adventure game, Willie, his brother Bones and their friend Sarai stumble upon the dead body of Sarai's stepfather, and as wilder and stranger things being to appear, a much deeper mystery about their small town is unlocked.
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Liar's Beach
Michael Linden--or just Linden to his preppy boarding school pals--doesn't belong in wealthy, storied Martha's Vineyard. But when his roommate, Jasper, invites him to spend the end of summer at his family's massive beachfront home, August House, Linden tries his best to fit in. Linden wouldn't call it lying, exactly. Though it turns out August House is full of liars. Then someone is found unconscious in Jasper's pool, and everyone has something to hide--Jasper; his beautiful twin sister, Eliza; their older brother, Wells; and their friends. The accident is written off as just that--an accident--but Linden begins to wonder... Enter: Holiday Proctor, Linden's childhood friend and the only person on the island who knows the truth about him. There's nothing Holiday loves more than a good mystery, and she's convinced there's a murderer on the Vineyard. The only question is...who?
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Such Charming Liars
For all of Kat's life, it’s just been her and her mother, Jamie--except for the forty-eight hours when Jamie was married and Kat had a stepbrother, Liam. That all ended in an epic divorce, and Kat and Liam haven't spoken since. Now Jamie is a jewel thief trying to go straight, but she has one last job--at billionaire Ross Sutherland's birthday party. And Kat has figured out a way to tag along. What Kat doesn't know, though, is that there are two surprise guests at the dazzling Sutherland compound that weekend. The last two people she wants to run into. Liam and his father--a serial scammer who has his sights set on Ross Sutherland's youngest daughter. Kat and Liam are on a collision course to disaster, and when a Sutherland dies, they realize they might actually be in the killer's crosshairs themselves. Somehow Kat and Liam are the new targets, and they can't trust anyone--except each other. Or can they? Because if there's one thing both Kat and Liam know, it's how to lie. They learned from the best.
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The Wilde Trials
Chloe Gatti will do whatever it takes to win her elite boarding school's annual competition, the Wilde Trials. In the two weeks leading up to graduation from Wilde Academy, a dozen seniors are chosen to compete in a series of seven ultimate physical and mental tests, and the winner will take home over half a million dollars--money that Chloe needs to help her sick sister. But the competition is fierce and includes her brooding ex-boyfriend, Hayes Stratford, whose brother was the only student to die during the trials a few years ago. When someone starts blackmailing Chloe during the competition, she's forced to strike a deal with Hayes--if he helps her discover who is sabotaging her, she'll help him solve the mystery his brother left behind. Following clues from Hayes's brother, the unlikely allies discover that something isn't right about the Wilde Trials. With a life-changing prize looming over her head and her buried feelings for Hayes rising to the surface, Chloe will have to decide what's really worth fighting for, and if the cost of competing outweighs the potential consequences, even if that includes ending up like Hayes's brother--dead.
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Bad Like Us
While at a private beach lodge with her popular classmates when an anonymous letter leads to murder, Eva places her trust in Colton and together they uncover secrets that upend everything they thought they knew about their fellow spring breakers.
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How To Find a Missing Girl
Seventeen-year-old amateur sleuth Iris and her sapphic detective agency investigate the disappearance of Iris's cheerleader ex-girlfriend, who also happens to be the creator of a notorious true-crime podcast about Iris's missing older sister.
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One Last Breath
Haunted by the death of her sister and the decades-old cold case of best friends Bailey and Celeste, eighteen-year-old Tru becomes entangled with a mysterious girl named Rio, as their pursuit of the truth unveils an otherworldly connection to the victims and puts them in the crosshairs of a potentially resurfaced killer.
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When Mimi Went Missing
Shy, nerdy Tanvi has always thought of her perfect cousin Mimi as her sister. Not only did Mimi’s family raise Tanvi after the tragic death of her parents, fierce Mimi has always protected Tanvi at school. At least until Mimi fell under the spell of their flawless, rich classmate, Beth… Tanvi’s biggest bully. Fearing another terrible year, Tanvi decides to take a desperate, preemptive strike—and captures an incriminating photo of Mimi and Beth at a party. When Tanvi wakes up the next day with a bump on her head, scratches on her leg, and no memory of what caused her injuries, Mimi is gone. Tanvi begins to fill the gaps in her memory and question Mimi’s friends and enemies, hoping to bring her cousin home. But when new evidence comes to light, the search for Mimi takes a dark turn as the cops announce that they are now hunting a murderer. Could Tanvi be the killer? To save her family, Tanvi must revisit the worst night of her life and the darkest parts of her past to discover if she’s capable of murder—and the truth of what happened to Mimi.
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We Are Villains
What happened to Arianna Reynolds? Ari’s death was ruled an accident, but for her best friend Milo, it’s shrouded in mystery. Why was she in the woods on the night of the fire? Had she been alone? Figuring out what happened the night Ari died is the only reason Milo returns to Yates Academy, even knowing he’ll be in constant danger… Liam is the King of Yates, a role he keeps hold of through his family’s old money--and the threat of violence. So when he begins receiving ominous letters from another student accusing him of murdering Ari, the suspect list is long. Desperate to prove his innocence before the accusation ruins his reign, Liam enlists Milo’s help to find the blackmailer. But the more Milo helps Liam, the more he becomes certain that Liam has something to hide. As Milo comes closer to the truth, he uncovers secrets that everyone wants to keep buried...
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We Did Nothing Wrong
Lia and Diana are the "it girls" of Empire Hill High. Their lives are perfect....until Diana disappears and the rumors start flying. Everyone thinks Diana is a runaway, including the police. Lia is secretly convinced it's all a prank. Then she finds a crushed red rose tied with a candy cane ribbon where Diana went missing. And next to it, a note: YOU. It's the same ribbon Lia's received on gifts from a "secret admirer." Did someone come for Diana that night? And will Lia be next?
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The Underwood Tapes
Thirty years ago, Grace's mom left her hometown of Hermitage, Florida, and never looked back--which is exactly why Grace thinks it's the safest place to spend her summer now. Since her mom died in a car crash, Grace has been desperate to get away from the memories and reminders of her loss. Spending the summer transcribing cassette tapes for the Hermitage Historical Society might be boring, but boring is just what Grace needs. Until she hears the voice of Jake Underwood--the boy who first recorded the cassette tapes back in 1992. When Grace realizes he can hear anything she records, despite thirty years of time between them, they strike up an impossible conversation through the tapes. But the past isn't any simpler than the present, and a mystery has haunted Hermitage through the generations. In the 1970s, a hurricane made landfall and resulted in the tragic death of Jake's Uncle Charley. In a town as suffocatingly small as Hermitage, it's impossible not to notice how no one talks about that storm, or Charley, and as the mystery unfurls, Grace can't help but realize a worse truth: no one talks about Jake either.
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The Meadowbrook Murders
For Amy and her best friend, Sarah, the first week of senior year at Meadowbrook Academy means late-night parties at the boathouse, bike rides through their sleepy Connecticut town, and the crisp beginning of a New England fall. But when Sarah and her boyfriend are brutally murdered one night, the week Amy has been dreaming about for years turns into a nightmare. Especially when everyone starts to think she's the culprit. She was Sarah’s roommate, the only person there when she died--or so Amy told the police to cover for her own boyfriend. And even though they were best friends, with every passing day, Amy begins to learn that Sarah lied about a lot of things. On the other side of campus, Liz, editor of the school newspaper and social outcast, is determined to uncover the truth about what happened in hopes her reportage will land her a prestigious scholarship for college. The more Liz dives into her investigation, the more secrets she unburies, and with a killer still on the loose, she can't afford to make any mistakes.
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Up in Smoke
After Cooper King is pressured by big brother-figure Jason to go on a looting spree during a local march, the unthinkable happens: Gunshots ring in the air and someone ends up dead. After Cooper flees, the news shows four teens in ski masks near the scene of the murder--Cooper and his friends. Cooper fears the cops will come knocking at his door, and the pressure only mounts when a suspect is taken into custody: Jason. Monique, Jason's sister and Cooper's longtime crush, is willing to go any length to clear her brother's name. Even if it means venturing into the belly of the beast and confronting the killer herself. When she teams up with Cooper, they fall down the investigation rabbit hole, all while falling for each other. But little does Monique know that within this web of deception, Cooper is shrouding the truth that he was there when the shots went off. If the pair fail to uncover the real murderer, Jason will get locked up for a crime he didn't commit--and drag down Cooper with him.
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When We Go Missing
What if you found evidence of a crime, but no one believed you? Seventeen-year-old Willow always has a camera around her neck. She volunteers as a photographer at Finding Home animal shelter. When Willow stumbles upon a lost camera memory card, it's filled with hundreds of photos of teenage girls. Some are smiling, others unaware, and a few seem terrified. The police tell her taking photos in public isn't a crime. But Willow can't seem to let it go, especially after she finds her own photo on the card. Willow teams up with new volunteer Dare to figure out what happened to the girls. As their investigation heats up, so does the chemistry between them. But everyone around Willow has a secret: Finding Home's owner, her own mom, and even Dare. When Willow learns that some of the girls on the camera card have gone missing, she realizes the unknown photographer might be a serial killer. Can Willow find him before he finds her?
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