This young adult murder mystery is a great read – I thoroughly enjoyed it. There are empathetic, realistic characters and a twisty mystery to solve. It’s one of those novels I read quite quickly because I wanted to know what happened next.

Dulce attends J Everett High. In the tradition of specialist high schools, this one focuses on young people who are looking towards careers connected to crime: forensic sciences, detection, and journalism are three study strands, for example. Although Dulce loves her school and loves the idea of solving crimes, she’s not in the best of places in her personal life.

But her personal concerns recede early in the school year, when one of her school mates is found murdered. Another student emerges as the natural suspect, but Dulce is not so sure. And she’s torn; her natural instinct is to investigate, but there are also some good reasons to let the accused flail. However, everything seems to be conspiring to draw Dulce into the investigation.

The setting of the novel is believable. There are plenty of specialist high schools around for real, and it’s not that much of a stretch to think one might emerge that focuses on crime related careers. I liked the fact that not too much of the novel was spent in the classroom – the setting was used well, but we weren’t forced to sit through classes.

Characters were strong and realistic. Dulce is on the edge of adulthood: not quite mature yet, but moving towards independence. I found her a believable mix of vulnerability and toughness. Munoz is good at depicting the push pull of teenage friendships: how close they can be, how supportive, how challenging, and how devastating when they go wrong.

The action moves along at a good pace. It’s realistic that events are spaced out a little, but there’s enough different things going on that it never felt slow. There was always something else to engage Dulce’s attention.

My only complaint about the novel – and it’s a small one – is the way the other students reacted to the murder. It’s a high school focused on crime: forensic studies, detecting, journalism focused on crimes. And yet Dulce and her friends seem to be the only ones actually interested in the murder or looking into it. Surely they’d have been tripping over hundreds of other students also trying to investigate the murder, or just dig up more details? I found it strange that most of the student body more or less ignored it.

However, that’s a small problem, and although it bugged me, it didn’t impact much on my enjoyment of the novel. This is a really good novel, regardless of whether you look at it as young adult or not.

I suspect this is aimed at slightly older readers – those over 15, perhaps – but I’d not be concerned if my Miss 12 picked it up. There are some older concepts in here, but nothing she couldn’t handle, and the language and setting are accessible to younger readers.

Highly recommended, not just for young adult readers, but for older readers too.