Books like Truly Devious
What should you read after Maureen Johnson’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- Maureen Johnson
- 2018
- YA mystery
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after Truly Devious
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchOne of Us is Lying
Karen M. McManus
Five students, one dead classmate, and a school where everyone has something to hide. The contemporary end of the same shelf, with rotating narrators instead of a detective.
- A school for prodigies
- A cliffhanger ending
- Golden-age mystery homage
- No historical cold case
Best for the campus atmosphereThe Secret History
Donna Tartt
The adult ancestor of every murder-at-an-elite-school novel. If the Ellingham setting was the draw — old money, cleverness, a closed circle — this is the source.
- A school for prodigies
- A cold case decades old
- Two timelines braided
- 560 pages, slow burn
Great matchThe Westing Game
Ellen Raskin
Sixteen heirs, a rigged puzzle and a dead millionaire who set the whole thing up. The purest puzzle-box on this list and still delightful at any age.
- Riddles and ciphers
- Golden-age mystery homage
- A cold case decades old
- Written for young readers
Worth a look — with a warningThe Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson
A disappearance from decades ago, a family estate and an investigator who works through old photographs. The cold-case structure, in a far more adult register.
- A cold case decades old
- Two timelines braided
- An amateur detective with anxiety
- Graphic sexual violence
Great matchWe Were Liars
E. Lockhart
A private island, a wealthy family and a summer the narrator cannot remember. Short, sharp, and built entirely around what you are not being told.
- A cliffhanger ending
- A cold case decades old
- Two timelines braided
- Mannered, poetic style
Great matchThe Name of the Star
Maureen Johnson
Johnson's other series, and the fastest way to more of this narrator's voice: an American girl at a London school during a Jack the Ripper copycat spree.
- An amateur detective with anxiety
- A school for prodigies
- A cold case decades old
- Ghosts, so genuinely supernatural
Worth a look — with a warningThe Invention of Hugo Cabret
Brian Selznick
A boy, a locked notebook and a mechanical puzzle in a Paris train station, told half in pictures. Shares Stevie's love of a mystery made of objects.
- Riddles and ciphers
- A cold case decades old
- Illustrated, for younger readers
Best for the golden-age homageAnd Then There Were None
Agatha Christie
The book Stevie's whole worldview is built on. Ten strangers, an island, a nursery rhyme, and the tightest plot Christie ever wrote.
- Golden-age mystery homage
- Riddles and ciphers
- A cold case decades old
- No modern narrator to like
Great matchThe Diviners
Libba Bray
1920s New York, a serial killer with an occult pattern, and a heroine with far more front than Stevie. Long, atmospheric and stuffed with period detail.
- A cold case decades old
- A cliffhanger ending
- Golden-age mystery homage
- Supernatural rather than deductive
Worth a look — with a warningSadie
Courtney Summers
A missing girl, a podcast reconstructing her trail, and no comfort at the end. It is the true-crime instinct behind Truly Devious taken entirely seriously.
- Two timelines braided
- An amateur detective with anxiety
- A cliffhanger ending
- Child abuse on the page
Great matchThe Naturals
Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Teenagers with a gift for reading people, recruited by the FBI to work cold cases. Sillier premise, similar pleasures, and it moves like a rocket.
- A school for prodigies
- A cold case decades old
- An amateur detective with anxiety
- Improbable FBI premise
Great matchThe Secret Keepers
Trenton Lee Stewart
An old watch, a hidden city and a boy following a chain of clues laid a generation earlier. Gentle, ingenious and satisfying if you liked the puzzle more than the murder.
- Riddles and ciphers
- A cold case decades old
- Middle-grade, no violence
Great matchThe Archived
Victoria Schwab
Schwab's library of the dead, where a girl's job is to keep the past from waking up. Atmospheric YA that scratches the same secret-institution itch.
- A school for prodigies
- A cold case decades old
- A cliffhanger ending
- Paranormal, not deductive
What should you read after Truly Devious?
Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus — five students, one dead classmate, and a school where everyone has something to hide. The contemporary end of the same shelf, with rotating narrators instead of a detective.
If what stayed with you was a school for prodigies, read The Secret History by Donna Tartt instead: the adult ancestor of every murder-at-an-elite-school novel. If the Ellingham setting was the draw — old money, cleverness, a closed circle — this is the source. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin is the other strong option — sixteen heirs, a rigged puzzle and a dead millionaire who set the whole thing up. The purest puzzle-box on this list and still delightful at any age.
Common questions
- What should you read after Truly Devious?
- One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin are the closest matches. Which fits best depends on what you loved about Truly Devious: a cold case decades old, a school for prodigies, an amateur detective with anxiety, two timelines braided.
- What is the best book like Truly Devious?
- One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus is the strongest overall match. Five students, one dead classmate, and a school where everyone has something to hide. The contemporary end of the same shelf, with rotating narrators instead of a detective.
- What are books similar to Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson?
- One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson, The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, The Diviners by Libba Bray, Sadie by Courtney Summers, The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Secret Keepers by Trenton Lee Stewart, The Archived by Victoria Schwab. Each one matches a different part of Truly Devious rather than just its genre.
- Is One of Us is Lying worth reading after Truly Devious?
- Yes — readers who loved Truly Devious tend to land well with it: a school full of suspects; secrets revealed by chapter; compulsive short chapters. One thing to know going in: no historical cold case.
Loved something else?
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