THE HANGING GIRL

A fake psychic gets involved in a fake kidnapping.

Named Candi by her then-teen mother, Skye has always used her middle name—and disdained her mother’s belief in psychic abilities. It’s her observational skills that let her give tarot card readings that she hopes will let her afford to live in New York after graduation with her best friend, Drew. But lower-class Skye doesn’t have the money, and she doesn’t know how to tell solidly middle-class Drew, which is how she gets wrapped up in a plot with Paige, the popular wild-child daughter of a judge. Paige will pretend to be kidnapped, and Skye will tell the police she’s had visions of Paige, leading to a ransom demand that’s sure to be paid. The plot unravels when Paige’s father refuses to cooperate—and then things go fatally wrong. With her lies piling up and her mother drawing more attention to herself, Skye needs to get to the bottom of the affair. When she learns the killer’s identity, though, it will change everything. Unfortunately, the murderer’s identity comes so far from left field it undermines what would otherwise be an interesting, provocative ending. The class divide in this town in the “boring middle” of Michigan is well-portrayed, though racial and ethnic diversity are only hinted at in passing—Drew is a brown-skinned queer woman—and the text subscribes to the white default.

A twisty but ultimately perplexing mystery.