A Note from the Author

When I first imagined The Directive Detectives, I wanted to create a middle-grade series that combined history, mystery, adventure, and, perhaps most importantly, friendship. I wanted young readers to discover that history isn't simply something found in textbooks. It's all around us, waiting to be explored.

What surprised me about the first book, The Freedom Trail Directive, was how many adults enjoyed it, too. Several told me they had learned things about Boston and American history that they never knew, or had long since forgotten.

That response helped shape my approach to The Salem Directive.

This second adventure is a little more layered than the first. It's still written for a middle-grade audience, and there's plenty of humor, banter, mystery, and the familiar friendship between Maddy, Evelyn, Darnel, and Jin. But I also wanted to challenge readers to look a little deeper.

The Salem witch trials are a familiar chapter of American history, but the real story is far more complicated than the version many of us remember from school. Behind the accusations were ordinary people, families, disagreements, fears, and decisions that had extraordinary consequences.

I wanted to explore those stories, particularly the life of Rebecca Nurse, while asking questions that remain relevant today. How does fear spread through a community? How do rumors become accepted as facts? And how can otherwise ordinary people convince themselves that someone they know is dangerous?

These are meaningful questions for young readers, but they're just as important for adults.

As the series develops, I'm discovering that I don't necessarily have to choose between writing for children and creating something adults can enjoy and learn from. I can trust younger readers with complex ideas while keeping the storytelling entertaining, accessible, and full of personality.

That's the direction I hope to continue exploring with The Directive Detectives. Each book will offer a new mystery, real historical locations, plenty of laughs, and a chance to discover something unexpected about the past.

Above all, I want readers of any age to finish one of these adventures having enjoyed the journey, learn something new, and perhaps start asking a few questions of their own.

Because history belongs to all of us.

Welcome to The Salem Directive!

Everyone thinks they know the story of Salem.

The Directive says they’re wrong.

Maddy, Evelyn, Darnel, and Jin are back.

After completing their first Directive through the streets of Boston, the four friends return to the hidden room inside the Boston Public Library and discover another unfinished file waiting for them.

This one leads to Salem.

But the Directive isn’t asking them to search for witches.

Instead, it sends them through crowded streets and quiet memorials, past buildings with misleading names and places that have nearly disappeared. They follow old maps, question court records, uncover mistakes, and discover how easily an accusation can become more powerful than the truth.

Along the way, one name keeps appearing.

Rebecca Nurse.

To understand what happened to her, the detectives will have to leave modern Salem behind and follow the Directive back to where the story began. There, they discover a woman who had lived more than seventy years before history reduced her life to a single accusation.

And they begin to understand why the detectives who came before them left this Directive unfinished.

Some history asks to be discovered.

Some asks to be questioned.

And some asks to be remembered.

The Salem Directive is the second adventure in the Directive Detectives series, where four friends follow clues through real places, uncover the stories behind them, and discover that the past is more complicated than it first appears.