Thursday, February 27, 2020

Book Review: One of Us is Next by Karen McManus


Jacque's Review:

Simon is gone, but the drama and bullying associated with his gossip app is still alive and well at Bayview High. This time around, there is a text group set up by "unknown" that is challenging students to a game of truth or dare. The first student selected is Phoebe, who decides to ignore the message, until a horrible truth is shared with the school. 

From then on, everyone seems to be taking the dares, which in comparison are rather tame. Things begin to spiral out of control when a student dies in an "accident" and another viscous truth is shared.

Bronwyn's sister Maeve is once again the ring leader in the investigation. She is working with an interesting group of characters that are both new and old. The Bayview Four (Nate, Addy, Cooper, and Bronwyn) are involved and offer their experience and expertise, but they are secondary characters this time around.

Maeve best friend/ex-boyfriend, Knox, witnesses the accident that killed a student, but he can't remember any of the details. He doesn't believe things really happened the way some of the other witnesses described the events, which is corroborated by some of the findings Nate discovers at the scene. They just don't have any solid proof, a motive, or a suspect.

Maeve and Knox recruit unknown's first victim, Phoebe, to their investigative team. In addition, Maeve's new crush, Luis, gets sucked into things when a shady characters shows up at his parent's restaurant. Luis is Cooper's best friend and the catcher on the baseball team in One of Us Is Lying. Addy and Phoebe both work at the restaurant and Knox and Maeve spend a lot of time hanging out there, so the five of them naturally come together to start solving this potential murder and to put an end to unknown's viscous game.

This was a very entertaining murder mystery. I sort of guessed one of the characters that was involved, but I never would have guessed the primary person behind the events or why this individual was interested in perpetuating Simon's legacy. I never imagined there would be a sequel to One of Us Is Lying, but this was a great addition to the series. I loved all of the new characters and enjoyed seeing how the Bayview Four have been doing since the conclusion of the first book. I was originally thinking this was going to be a companion novel, but it definitely needs to be read after One of Us Is Lying to fully appreciate everything that is taking place. 

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