By the Time You Read This I'll Be Gone (Murder, She Wrote #1)
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Small town murders.
Big time thrills.
A suspenseful, modern update of the classic mystery TV series that's perfect for fans of One of Us Is Lying, Sadie, and Gossip Girl.
“Killers walk among us. Statistically, at least one of them knows your name...”
Beatrice Fletcher is obsessed with unsolved murders in her small town of Cabot Cove, Maine like her great-aunt Jessica, the famous mystery writer. But when her best friend Jackson goes missing, this time the mystery is personal.
Then Jackson fails to show up for a late night meet-up, and instead, Bea stumbles upon three students from the elite Broadmoor Academy: overly-friendly and slightly vicious Leisl, her aloof twin brother, Leif, and Carlos, who knows more about, well, everything than he’s letting on. They’re worldly, secretive, and big on playing games like tenace, the hush-hush Broadmoor tradition where anything or anyone can be a clue to future fame and fortune, and players will stop at nothing -- including murder -- to get ahead.
If Bea wants to find Jackson, she too must join the game and play to win. Everyone in Cabot Cove has secrets, and it’s up to Bea to ferret them out before it’s too late in this thrilling modern update of the classic television show.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a gripping series opener, Kuehn (We Weren't Looking to Be Found) mixes small-town coziness with intriguing dual mysteries. Striving to be as tenacious as her crime novelist great-aunt, Cabot Cove High School student and amateur investigative reporter Bea Fletcher, 15, cracks cold cases and writes about them on crime website TrueMaine. When her best friend, Jackson, is declared missing after failing to accompany Bea to her teen anxiety support group, she persuades calculating twins Leisl and Leif and charming Carlos—students at nearby elite Broadmoor Academy—to find him. Though each of the enigmatic trio is hiding a secret, they agree to help, motivated by their own desire to solve a mystery surrounding the 1980s death of a local teen. But as the group's members struggle to trust one another, they discover they're not the only ones in Cabot Cove with something to hide. Fully fleshed out backstories empathetically cover topics of grief, privilege, and suicidal ideation, and Kuehn's elaborately plotted narrative stays true to the inspiration's format, culminating in a briskly paced resolution that handily concludes these mysteries while leaving plenty of clues behind to set the stage for the next. Bea is white, Black, and Mexican; Carlos is Latinx-cued; Leisl and Leif are white. Ages 12–up.