Very Bad People
Kit Frick
Very Bad People
Kit Frick
In this dark academia young adult thriller for fans of The Female of the Species and People Like Us, a teen girl’s search for answers about her mother’s mysterious death leads to a powerful secret society at her new boarding school - and a dangerous game of revenge that will leave her forever changed.
Six years ago, Calliope Bolan’s mother drove the family van into a lake with her three daughters inside. The girls escaped, but their mother drowned, and the truth behind the accident remains a mystery Calliope is determined to solve. Now sixteen, she transfers to Tipton Academy, the same elite boarding school her mother once attended. Tipton promises a peek into the past and a host of new opportunities-including a coveted invitation to join Haunt and Rail, an exclusive secret society that looms over campus like a legend.
Calliope accepts, stepping into the exhilarating world of the ghosts, a society of revolutionaries fighting for social justice. But when Haunt and Rail commits to exposing a dangerous person on campus, it becomes clear that some ghosts define justice differently than others.
As the society’s tactics escalate, Calliope uncovers a possible link between Haunt and Rail and her mother’s deadly crash. Now, she must question what lengths the society might go to in order to see a victory - and if the secret behind her mother’s death could be buried here at Tipton.
Review
Angela Crocombe
There are a number of bad people in this pacey, dark thriller set in the world of academia. The fun is undoubtedly figuring out who the bad people are in the cast of potential suspects.
Calliope is escaping from the suffocating, small-town life she has lived with her younger sisters and father for the last six years since their mother died in a car crash. The three girls were in the car when their mother crashed into a lake, but have no recollection of how it happened – an accident, on purpose, or was it murder?
When she becomes a student at Tipton, the elite boarding school her mother attended, Calliope is focused on learning more about her mother and working out what happened the day her car crashed. At Tipton she is invited to a secret society, which performs pranks highlighting social justice on campus, and of which her mother was also a member. There she learns about Tipton history but must also do morally dubious things. When Calliope thinks she sees a man she recognises in the nearby village, she starts swapping notes with him on a public noticeboard in town in an attempt to get closer to the truth. But this novel has more twists and turns than a rollercoaster, with plenty of red herrings to distract and confuse the reader.
Utterly compelling and highly readable, this is a brilliant, twisty thriller that will be devoured by those who love the works of Karen McManus and Holly Jackson. A well- written, high-stakes thrill ride for ages 14+.
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