The Box in the Woods

Book 4: Truly Devious

by Maureen Johnson

Genres: YA Mysteries & Thrillers; Young Adult

Synopsis

After solving the case of Truly Devious, Stevie Bell investigates her first mystery outside of Ellingham Academy in this spine-chilling and hilarious stand-alone mystery from New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson.

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.

* Cosmopolitan Best YA Books of 2021 * People Magazine Best Books of Summer 2021*

Release date: June 15, 2021

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Print pages: 400

Sample

Murder is wrong, of course. Stevie’s future was predicated on that fact. She wanted to solve murders, not commit them. To solve them, you had to understand why they’d occurred. Motive. That was the key. It was all about motive. Understand the reasons behind the act. What pushes another human being to that point of no return? It has to be a strong impulse.

“I’ll have . . . a pound of . . . is that . . . do you have . . . low-sodium ham?”

“Yes,” Stevie said, staring at the woman on the other side of the deli counter.

“Which one is that?”

“It’s the one marked ‘low-sodium ham.’”

“Where?”

Stevie pointed at a round-edged rectangle of ham, the one with the card that read “Low-Sodium Ham.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll have a . . . I guess . . . make it a half pound of that, and a pound of . . . do you have low-fat Swiss cheese?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s that?”

Stevie pointed at the cheese that was similarly marked.

“Oh.” The low-fat Swiss cheese somehow disappointed. The woman bit her upper lip and consulted her phone. “The recipe says low-fat Swiss, but . . . do you have low-fat provolone?”

“No,” Stevie said.

“Oh. Um. Hmmmm.”

What were the murder statutes in Pennsylvania? Surely there had to be something in there about people who came to the deli counter and stood there asking questions about things that were clearly written on signs, making ten other people wait behind them. It was the Friday-evening shift, which meant people wanted their weekend lunch meat and deli stuff and they wanted to go home. And here was this woman, lost in the cabinet of wonders that was the deli counter.

“Do you have . . . ,” the woman began.

Lots of murder weapons at the deli counter. So many knives. The most dangerous thing was the meat slicer, but it would be hard to turn that into a murder weapon. Too heavy, and it had a safety guard. It could probably be done, though. . . .

“I guess . . .” The woman peered into the glass. “I mean, I guess I’ll take the Swiss. The low-fat Swiss. A quarter, no . . . wait. I’m probably going to double it, so . . . well . . . a quarter would probably be fine. Or . . .”

You’d have to get someone into the feeding side of the slicer. Really hold them in there. You could take off their fingers. . . .

“Miss?”

Stevie snapped back. She had been staring at the slicer, shoving imaginary fingers into the opening.

“A quarter pound of the low-fat Swiss,” the woman said again.

This was said with a bit of an edge to it, indicating that it was outrageous how Stevie had made this woman wait entire seconds. There was no recognition of all the time the woman had spent pondering her lunch-meatorial thoughts. She saw the woman give a side-eye to someone else in the line that said, Can you believe the kind of person they hire here? Stevie clenched her jaw and took the heavy brick of cheese from the refrigerated counter.

“Thin!” the woman yelled. “Thin!”

Stevie considered the slicer again. Not the most elegant weapon, but it could get the job done.