SIGNED SEALED DEAD

Letters from an unknown sender lead a transplanted English girl toward the answers in an old murder case.

Despite some misgivings, Paige Carmichael is determined to make the best of her new life in the U.S., including finding things to love about the very old, very big, potentially haunted house her dad insisted on. The pool and the view of the Atlantic from her bedroom are nice, as are Madison and Carter Garcia-Moore, the twins who live on the same street and who quickly take Paige under their wing. A poster for a local memorial event for the victims of a 1990s killer known as the Shorehaven Ripper sparks Paige’s raging true-crime obsession, to say nothing of the ominous letter that appears in her mailbox suggesting that something important may be hidden in the walls of her house. That something turns out to be the diary of one of the murdered girls, which Paige must quickly use to untangle her family’s connections to the story before she becomes a victim herself. Though Murphy covers a whole lot of ground with the topics in this novel, everything fits together smoothly for an enjoyably confounding mystery. The incredibly fast pace doesn’t leave much room for character development, though the characters are complex and well balanced enough and with mostly believable motivations, making this an excellent choice for voracious teen thriller readers. Main characters read white; the twins have two moms.

Compellingly puzzling.