Fans of Ally Carter, especially her Heist Society readers, will love this teen mystery/thriller with sarcastic wit, a hint of romance, and Ocean’s Eleven–inspired action.
Julep Dupree tells lies. A lot of them. She’s a con artist, a master of disguise, and a sophomore at Chicago’s swanky St. Agatha High, where her father, an old-school grifter with a weakness for the ponies, sends her to so she can learn to mingle with the upper crust. For extra spending money Julep doesn’t rely on her dad—she runs petty scams for her classmates while dodging the dean of students and maintaining an A+ (okay, A-) average.
But when she comes home one day to a ransacked apartment and her father gone, Julep’s carefully laid plans for an expenses-paid golden ticket to Yale start to unravel. Even with help from St. Agatha’s resident Prince Charming, Tyler Richland, and her loyal hacker sidekick, Sam, Julep struggles to trace her dad’s trail of clues through a maze of creepy stalkers, hit attempts, family secrets, and worse, the threat of foster care. With everything she has at stake, Julep’s in way over her head . . . but that’s not going to stop her from using every trick in the book to find her dad before his mark finds her. Because that would be criminal.
"The fact that I was murdered didn't come as a surprise; it was the fact that it hadn't happened sooner which shocked me."
High school senior, Caitlyn Coates, has everything going for her; she's beautiful, brilliant and rich. With just a month until graduation, and her acceptance to Yale confirmed, she should be celebrating, but that's a little hard to do, seeing as how she's...dead. All that remains of Highland Park High's most popular student is her pinky finger, a clump of hair and a red silk thong. The disappearance of the wealthy teen girl with the bright future has sent shock waves through Highland Park, an upscale suburb of Chicago. It's up to hard-headed police force veteran, Detective Brandon, to unravel the truth. But in a town where everyone has a secret to keep and a motive for murder, solving Caitlyn's case will be filled with challenges, including a new rookie partner and the constant media attention due to the nation's obsession over all the morbid details surrounding Caitlyn's demise. Told from each character's point of view (including the deceased), the mystery surrounding Caitlyn Coates' murder may be just as mysterious as Caitlyn herself. It appears, in Highland Park, the truth is seldom what it seems. As Detective Brandon gets closer and closer to solving the case, he realizes that the most dangerous type of lie isn't the one that is told, but the one left unsaid.