Introduction

My eyes drop to Mr. Larkin’s lemon tie, still visible beneath the red slashes on the garden committee poster, as I think about everything I’ve heard or seen over the past week. The man was a void. That son of a bitch got what he deserved. There’s more than one way to be awful. And I wonder, with another uncomfortable twist of my stomach, whether I ever really knew my favorite teacher at all.

Chapter Nineteen

My friends, I love a good murder mystery. I am a fool for cozy mysteries, spooky mysteries, and especially murder mysteries with engaging and dynamic characters who keep you hooked until the end. Nothing More to Tell is Karen M. McManus’ most recent work, which I received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. In it we follow Brynn Gallagher, a budding reporter who is forced to move back to her hometown for her father’s job after a blow to her burgeoning journalistic dreams. She decides to investigate the murder of her favorite teacher, Mr. Larkin, and discovers that the town of Sturgis has secrets it would rather keep hidden.

The Good Stuff

I cannot say enough how much I enjoyed this book. Life got in the way of me reading it initially, but once I got started I could not put it down. This was another that I ended up finishing in an evening and my dear husband got to listen to me yell excitedly about it for about 30 minutes after I put it down. What a gem! This is my first interaction with Karen M. McManus’ body of work and it was a wonderful introduction to her. I can’t wait to read more.

As a fan of murder mysteries, there are a bank of story patterns and tropes that authors mix and remix to great effect. It’s not a bad thing to me – the familiarity of them is a comfort and makes it really fun when we see new ways that these things are put together. McManus really plays with the genre and these story patterns in this book and uses a dual perspective to wonderful effect. Brynn and Tripp’s alternating perspectives are a great way to fully flesh out the town and progress the story. It was a bit of a risky move, as it might have introduced too many characters or threads to follow coherently, but the length of each chapter did a lot to help manage the changes back and forth. Additionally, Tripp’s perspective in-story was a fantastic hook and kept me running toward the finish line.

A few other things to point out that I loved: LGBTQIA+ representation! Brynn and Tripp seem to be cis/het teens, but there are other characters who are expressly described as not straight. I so, so appreciate this, especially in YA literature, because in this story they don’t die and aren’t made into a caricature of themselves. Instead, the queer characters are fully fleshed out and are treated as truly normal. That in an of itself is lovely, but McManus does a particularly nice job writing believable teenagers. Social media and its effect on character interactions is written well and with an understanding that makes McManus’ characters sound like the kids next door.

In Summary

Overall, I have been recommending the heck out of this book now that it’s been officially released. It was such a fun read and I hope y’all find as much joy in it as I did. This book is highly recommended.

You can find the book via Karen M. McManus’ website here. As always, gichi miigwetch for reading!