Whispers of Dead Girls by Marlee Bush (2025)
This swifty paced engrossing thriller deals with those particular unsavory crimes that captivate the headlines - teen high school girls besotted with their male teachers, some of whom take cruel, sexual advantage of their immature, naive students.
Biology teacher Ren Taylor survived such an episode when she was in high school but due to fatal tragic circumstances, her older sister Margo did not. Years later, she's come back to the same school to teach while at the same time still actively haunted by conversations with her late charismatic Prom Queen sister, whose shadow she perpetually lived in..
Ren's grim history starts to repeat itself as she reaches out to befriend Olivia, a student possibly distraught after an encounter with popular physics teacher Bryson Lewis. Very much like the teacher in Ren's terrible past, the handsome, outgoing Mr. Lewis is admired and beloved by the student body, especially the girls in his class.
And that's as much detail as I'd dare discuss here, at the risk of spoiling the twists and reveals this story takes. for Ren, Olivia, Bryson Lewis and the much celebrated and admired Margo. herself. All of this unfolds as Ren's relentless, reckless amateur investigation into what's going on opens a Pandora's Box of secrets and surprises.....present and past.
This one does what you expect a solid, skillfully crafted thriller to do......hold you fast in its grip from first page to last. I realize some readers may not get on board with the over-the-top, loaded-with-exposition theatrical ending, but at that point, I was so glued to the book I went with it fully. All in all, a suspenseful ride that poses an age old, unsettling question during its epilogue. A definite double-check for thriller-mystery fans.
4 stars (****).
No comments:
Post a Comment