Review--The Box in the Woods by Maureen Johnson

 

The Truly Devious series continues as Stevie Bell investigates her first mystery outside of Ellingham Academy in this spine-chilling and hilarious stand-alone mystery.

Amateur sleuth Stevie Bell needs a good murder. After catching a killer at her high school, she’s back at home for a normal (that means boring) summer.

But then she gets a message from the owner of Sunny Pines, formerly known as Camp Wonder Falls—the site of the notorious unsolved case, the Box in the Woods Murders. Back in 1978, four camp counselors were killed in the woods outside of the town of Barlow Corners, their bodies left in a gruesome display. The new owner offers Stevie an invitation: Come to the camp and help him work on a true crime podcast about the case.

Stevie agrees, as long as she can bring along her friends from Ellingham Academy. Nothing sounds better than a summer spent together, investigating old murders.

But something evil still lurks in Barlow Corners. When Stevie opens the lid on this long-dormant case, she gets much more than she bargained for. The Box in the Woods will make room for more victims. This time, Stevie may not make it out alive.

 

Maureen Johnson gives Stevie Bell a new mystery to solve outside of Ellingham Academy with The Box in the Woods! I can happily say that this one was a little more enjoyable. Perhaps the strain of sticking with the same mystery for so many books is what took its toll on me. This book here has a one and done mystery and as I was reading this, I feel like I remember Maureen mentioning the "future" Stevie books after book 3, would be more standalone mysteries that were resolved from start to finish.

It's the summer after Stevie solved the long ago Ellingham murders and the current murders that overtook her school. She is ready for a completely bland summer working at the grocery store when all of sudden, she receives an email from someone wanting her help solving a mystery. Stevie had been getting a few of these over the last few weeks and most were always junk, but something about this one felt legit and after vetting out the story, she agrees to go and is even allowed to bring her friends, Janelle and Nate. Her boyfriend, David, is off working for her father's political enemy having been cutoff financially, he's pretty much on his own now.

Stevie has been asked to help solve the Box in the Woods murders from the 70s where four teenagers were brutally murdered at summer camp. There were never any hardcore suspects of much evidence to lead the police anywhere. The crime remains unsolved and it is the crime that has inspired Carson to create a podcast about it. Carson is some new-age hippie, environmentalist sort who's an eccentric guy, but overall decent. He has bought the summer camp where the tragedies happened in order to help his podcast and the camp is being revived into a running summer camp again and Stevie and her friends will be "undercover" as employees, but also looking for clues and such to help solve the decades' old mystery.

I was once again pleased to see we had flashbacks in this one that helped to paint the murders as they happened. We see, without actually seeing, what happened and the terrible aftermath. But sadly, these flashbacks didn't last as long as I thought they would. After a certain point in the aftermath, they stop and we're left with Stevie trying to put the pieces of the past together. A few of the people who worked at the camp back then are still in town, as it is a small town, one you don't really leave after growing up. So Stevie has plenty of people to talk to, including one of the victim's sisters.

It's all well and good for awhile. There are some false leads and a little shot of terror here and there, but it takes awhile for the ante to up its game. I'll admit that this one had a bit of a roller-coaster effect on me. It started with building up my anticipation, it really got me going and then we hit a bit of a lull, but towards the last quarter of the book things picked up again. Although, again, I'll also admit a bit of the pieces that were coming together for Stevie kind of came out of left field. All of a sudden, we're seeing things and I was like what is this? Well, it turned out to be key moments to what would lead to devastation!

Just as we get happy that Stevie and David reconciled at the end of the third book, we find them separated for the summer, again. It almost feels like these two will never get to be together. Something will always be in their way. It's a bit aggravating, because these two are cute together. So what moments they get to share together in this one are precious and sweet. I'll admit, I was kind of hoping David would be more Watson to Stevie's Holmes, but that role belongs more to Nate this time around than anyone else.

I guess because I came into this one knowing it would be a "one-and-done" mystery, it was easier to get into. There didn't need to be any unnecessary buildup and then deflecting to everyday life. Yes, we do still get a bit of "downtime" as Stevie fulfills camp duties and quality time with David, but I feel like for the most part we did get a better round of mystery solving time and less, lolly-gagging.

The Box in the Woods was definitely a better mystery this time around. I felt like the actual mystery was pretty creepy, I mean murder always is. But when the danger becomes more present in Stevie's current day, that's what made it even more exciting! The woods are lovely, dark and deep and it can hide many secrets and things. I do wish we had a bit more explanation as to what became of the coverup of the murders to look like the way they did. If it was really just as simple as we're led to believe. It wasn't really explored when Stevie did her explanation of everything, so I guess the simplest answer is actually correct. Oh well. Definitely a better mystery this time around and I am looking forward to more of this style of mystery from the series.

Overall Rating 4/5 stars