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  • One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus
  • Elizabeth Bush
McManus, Karen M. One of Us Is Lying. Delacorte, 2017 [368p]
Library ed. ISBN 978-1-5247-1469-7 $20.99
Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-5247-1468-0 $17.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-5247-1470-3 $10.99
Reviewed from galleys         R Gr. 8-10

Mr. Avery is not a teacher who tolerates cell phones in class, and five of his students end up in after-school detention after he confiscates the devices he found in their bags; the teens, though, are insisting that those were not their phones and they're being punked. While Mr. Avery bats away their complaints, a fender bender in the high school parking lot distracts their attention, and very shortly thereafter, one of the students, Simon Kelleher, collapses in anaphylactic shock and dies before anyone can help him. Cause of death: peanut oil in a plastic cup in Avery's classroom. Suspects: class brainiac, Bronwyn; class drug dealer, Nate; ditzy beauty, Addy; baseball phenom, Cooper. Motive: revenge for the posts in which blogger Simon aired the filthy laundry of his classmates, including the darkest secrets of his four detention-mates. As the police try again and again to pressure any one of the quartet to rat out the rest, the teens, of course, launch their own investigation, while keeping their complicated love lives on the boil. Although Breakfast Club references are virtually unavoidable, it's the mystery that carries the day, with enough pungent red herrings to lead readers down dead end trails and a reveal that's consistent with the clues scattered along the paths. Whodunnit fans will appreciate McManus' craftsmanship, and high school drama devotees will revel in the shaming, shunning, censuring chorus of bystanders enjoying every tawdry moment of their classmates' crisis.

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