10 Best Youth Mystery Books Set in School Environments!
Hey there bookworms and budding detectives! We’re about to plunge into the exciting world where classrooms aren't just for lectures, school hallways hide secrets, and every locker might just be a clue to solving the mystery. Yes, we're talking about youth mystery books set in school environments - the perfect blend of ordinary teenage life and extraordinary adventures!
These unique stories deliver heart-thumping suspense, intricate problems to unravel, and inkling of teenage drama. They keep you hanging onto every word, flipping through pages in anticipation. A school can be surprisingly mysterious, riddled with forgotten histories, elusive characters, and whatnot, creating a perfect backdrop for young detectives to unfold the truth!
Remember when you passed a note in class or found an ominous letter in your locker? These books take such seemingly innocent school incidents and spin them into thrilling mystery stories. They weave life in school courtyard with elements of curiosity, thrill, and intellectual satisfaction of cracking a case.
Whether you’re after whimsical adventures that tickle your imagination, dark mysterious plots that make your heartbeat race, or brain-teasing puzzles that test your deductive skills, these recommended books cover it all! Sit tight folks, we are about to take you on a thrilling literary ride. No sneaky spoilers, we promise!
『One of Us Is Lying』
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY • BUZZFEED • POPCRUSH “Pretty Little Liars meets The Breakfast Club” (Entertainment Weekly) in this addictive mystery about what happens when five strangers walk into detention and only four walk out alive. Pay close attention and you might solve this. On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention. Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule. Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess. Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing. Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher. And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High’s notorious gossip app. Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention Simon's dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn’t an accident. On Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, he’d planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who’s still on the loose? Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them. All the secrets of the Bayview Four will be revealed in the TV series now streaming on NBC's Peacock! And don’t miss the #1 New York Times bestselling sequel, One of Us is Next!
Author | Karen M. McManus |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | National Geographic Books |
Release Date | May 30, 2017 |
Source | Google Books |
『Truly Devious』
New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson weaves a delicate tale of murder and mystery in the first book of a striking new series, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and E. Lockhart. Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place,” he said, “where learning is a game.” Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym “Truly, Devious.” It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history. True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder. The two interwoven mysteries of this first book in the Truly Devious series dovetail brilliantly, and Stevie Bell will continue her relentless quest for the murderers in books two and three.
Author | Maureen Johnson |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Katherine Tegen Books |
Release Date | Jan 16, 2018 |
Source | Google Books |
『Ace of Spades』
Gossip Girl meets Get Out in Ace of Spades, a YA contemporary thriller by debut author Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé about two students, Devon & Chiamaka, and their struggles against an anonymous bully. All you need to know is . . . I’m here to divide and conquer. Like all great tyrants do. —Aces When two Niveus Private Academy students, Devon Richards and Chiamaka Adebayo, are selected to be part of the elite school’s senior class prefects, it looks like their year is off to an amazing start. After all, not only does it look great on college applications, but it officially puts each of them in the running for valedictorian, too. Shortly after the announcement is made, though, someone who goes by Aces begins using anonymous text messages to reveal secrets about the two of them that turn their lives upside down and threaten every aspect of their carefully planned futures. As Aces shows no sign of stopping, what seemed like a sick prank quickly turns into a dangerous game, with all the cards stacked against them. Can Devon and Chiamaka stop Aces before things become incredibly deadly? With heart-pounding suspense and relevant social commentary comes a high-octane thriller from debut author Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé.
Author | Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé |
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Price | $9.99 |
Publisher | Feiwel & Friends |
Release Date | Jun 01, 2021 |
Source | Google Books |
『A Study in Charlotte』
The first book in a witty, suspenseful new series about a brilliant new crime-solving duo: the teen descendants of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. This clever page-turner will appeal to fans of Maureen Johnson and Ally Carter. Jamie Watson has always been intrigued by Charlotte Holmes; after all, their great-great-great-grandfathers are one of the most infamous pairs in history. But the Holmes family has always been odd, and Charlotte is no exception. She’s inherited Sherlock’s volatility and some of his vices—and when Jamie and Charlotte end up at the same Connecticut boarding school, Charlotte makes it clear she’s not looking for friends. But when a student they both have a history with dies under suspicious circumstances, ripped straight from the most terrifying of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Jamie can no longer afford to keep his distance. Danger is mounting and nowhere is safe—and the only people they can trust are each other.
Author | Brittany Cavallaro |
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Price | $13.99 |
Publisher | HarperCollins |
Release Date | Mar 01, 2016 |
Source | Google Books |
『Shadow of the Lions』
“My lungs began to burn as I started sprinting. It wasn’t just that I wanted to catch Fritz. I had the distinct feeling that I was chasing him, that I had to catch up with him, before something caught up with me.” How long must we pay for the crimes of our youth? That is just one question Christopher Swann explores in this compulsively readable debut, a literary thriller set in the elite—and sometimes dark—environs of Blackburne, a prep school in Virginia. When Matthias Glass’s best friend, Fritz, vanishes without a trace in the middle of an argument during their senior year, Matthias tries to move on with his life, only to realize that until he discovers what happened to his missing friend, he will be stuck in the past, guilty, responsible, alone. Almost ten years after Fritz’s disappearance, Matthias gets his chance. Offered a job teaching English at Blackburne, he gets swiftly drawn into the mystery. In the shadowy woods of his alma mater, he stumbles into a web of surveillance, dangerous lies, and buried secrets—and discovers the troubled underbelly of a school where the future had once always seemed bright. A sharp tale full of false leads and surprise turns, Shadow of the Lions is also wise and moving. Christopher Swann has given us a gripping debut about friendship, redemption, and what it means to lay the past to rest.
Author | Christopher Swann |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Algonquin Books |
Release Date | Jul 31, 2018 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Secret Place』
“An absolutely mesmerizing read. . . . Tana French is simply this: a truly great writer.” —Gillian Flynn Read the New York Times bestseller by Tana French, author of the forthcoming novel The Hunter and “the most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years” (The Washington Post). A year ago a boy was found murdered at a girlsʼ boarding school, and the case was never solved. Detective Stephen Moran has been waiting for his chance to join Dublin’s Murder Squad when sixteen-year-old Holly Mackey arrives in his office with a photo of the boy with the caption: “I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM.” Stephen joins with Detective Antoinette Conway to reopen the case—beneath the watchful eye of Holly’s father, fellow detective Frank Mackey. With the clues leading back to Holly’s close-knit group of friends, to their rival clique, and to the tangle of relationships that bound them all to the murdered boy, the private underworld of teenage girls turns out to be more mysterious and more dangerous than the detectives imagined.
Author | Tana French |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Penguin |
Release Date | Aug 04, 2015 |
Source | Google Books |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | |
Release Date | |
Source | Google Books |
『The Cheerleaders』
"Sharp, brilliantly plotted, and totally engrossing."--KAREN M. MCMANUS, New York Times bestselling author of One of Us Is Lying "A crafty, dark, and disturbing story."--KATHLEEN GLASGOW, New York Times bestselling author of Girl In Pieces "A little bit Riverdale and a little bit Veronica Mars."--RILEY SAGER, bestselling author of Final Girls A Goodreads Best Young Adult Book of the Year Nominee From the author of The Darkest Corners and Little Monsters comes an all-new edge-of-your-seat thriller set in upstate New York about an eerie sequence of seemingly unrelated events that leaves five cheerleaders dead. There are no more cheerleaders in the town of Sunnybrook. First there was the car accident--two girls dead after hitting a tree on a rainy night. Not long after, the murders happened. Those two girls were killed by the man next door. The police shot him, so no one will ever know his reasons. Monica's sister was the last cheerleader to die. After her suicide, Sunnybrook High disbanded the cheer squad. No one wanted to be reminded of the girls they'd lost. That was five years ago. Now the faculty and students at Sunnybrook High want to remember the lost cheerleaders. But for Monica, it's not that easy. She just wants to forget. Only, Monica's world is starting to unravel. There are the letters in her stepdad's desk, an unearthed, years-old cell phone, a strange new friend at school. . . . Whatever happened five years ago isn't over. Some people in town know more than they're saying. And somehow, Monica is at the center of it all. There are no more cheerleaders in Sunnybrook, but that doesn't mean anyone else is safe. More Praise for Kara Thomas: "Gripping from start to finish . . . with twists that left me shocked."--VICTORIA AVEYARD, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Red Queen "You'll be up all night tearing through the pages."--BUSTLE "This deliciously deceptive thriller...is a must-have."--SLJ
Author | Kara Thomas |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Ember |
Release Date | Aug 06, 2019 |
Source | Google Books |
『People Like Us』
"Mean Girls meets Donna Tartt's The Secret History with a little bit of Riverdale mixed in. So yeah, it's epic."--HelloGiggles "In People Like Us, Dana Mele delivers the Gossip Girl meets Pretty Little Liars young adult novel you've been waiting for."--Bustle Kay Donovan may have skeletons in her closet, but the past is past, and she's reinvented herself entirely. Now she's a star soccer player whose group of gorgeous friends run their private school with effortless popularity and acerbic wit. But when a girl's body is found in the lake, Kay's carefully constructed life begins to topple. The dead girl has left Kay a computer-coded scavenger hunt, which, as it unravels, begins to implicate suspect after suspect, until Kay herself is in the crosshairs of a murder investigation. But if Kay's finally backed into a corner, she'll do what it takes to survive. Because at Bates Academy, the truth is something you make...not something that happened. Debut author Dana Mele has written a taut, sophisticated suspense novel that will keep readers guessing until the very end.
Author | Dana Mele |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Penguin |
Release Date | Feb 27, 2018 |
Source | Google Books |
『On the Jellicoe Road』
Taylor Markham is not a popular choice. She is erratic, has no people skills and never turns up to meetings. Not to mention the incident when she ran off in search of her mother and only got halfway there. But she's lived at Jellicoe School most of her life and as leader of the boarders that's her greatest asset. Especially now the cadets, led by the infamous Jonah Griggs, have arrived. The territory wars between the boarders, townies and cadets are about to recommence. But Taylor has other things on her mind: a prayer tree, the hermit who whispered in her ear, and a vaguely familiar drawing in the local police station. Taylor wants to understand the mystery of her own past. But Hannah, the woman who found her, has suddenly disappeared, leaving nothing but an unfinished manuscript about five kids whose lives entwined twenty years ago on the Jellicoe Road . . .
Author | Melina Marchetta |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Penguin Group Australia |
Release Date | Jan 01, 2010 |
Source | Google Books |
Alright, there you have it, guys! These 10 amazing youth mystery novels will keep you on the edge of your seat as you juggle between schoolwork, secret passageways, and unraveling mind-boggling mysteries. It doesn't matter if you're a bookworm or just starting to explore the world of literature, these books offer a wild ride that will leave you thirsty for more. Rooted in the familiar territories of school and teenage years, these stories cleverly disguise profound life lessons under the cloak of suspense and thrill. You’ll get to experience rollercoaster emotions as you accompany the characters through their adventures and misadventures. Who knew that school could be so exciting and mysterious, right? You might even start wishing for your own real-life mystery to solve! So, what are you waiting for? Let's dive into these crazy adventures. Remember, not all classrooms have four walls, and these books are perfect examples of that. Happy reading, everyone!
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