I know you're lying

PW contributor Benedis-Grab returns to upstate New York's Snow Valley Secondary, the setting of I Know Your Secret, with another character-driven academic mystery, this time centering four unwitting seventh graders accused of theft based on circumstantial evidence. When a backpack is stolen from the locker of popular but unmerciful Sasha Saturday, class clown Henry Davis, dancer Maddie Fox, reporter Nora Montgomery, and artist Jack Tran--under threat of expulsion and possible litigation--are given in-school suspension until one of them confesses. The students initially accuse one another, but their acrimony turns to solidarity, and launches a name-clearing investigation among them, when Sasha threatens to blackmail the whole quartet. Unfolding entirely in one day, the concisely plotted novel's propulsive pacing keeps one eye on the clock, pausing for tender, camaraderie-deepening scenes that reveal Sasha's leverage over each of the four. The characters' experiences, including Vietnamese American Jack's encounters with Covid-19-related racism and Henry's guilt over his family's financial precarity, add compassionate depth to a tightly coiled thriller positing that crimes, like people, have more to them than it may initially seem. Most characters read as white. Ages 8--12. Agent: Sara Crowe, Pippin Properties. (Sept.)

One of Us Is Lying for the middle-grade set. Four seventh graders--eager school paper reporter Nora, passionate artist Jack, talented dance team member Maddie, and perennial joker Henry--are placed in in-school suspension à la The Breakfast Club after the backpack belonging to Sasha, the PTA president's daughter, is stolen. Captured on video entering school early without permission, the four suspects must remain there until one of them confesses. Through alternating narratives from each student's perspective, readers learn they each have a hidden and plausible motive--and Sasha knows their secrets, too. In a setup similar to Benedis-Grab's I Know Your Secret (2021), the four seemingly different middle schoolers must work together to recover the stolen backpack and thwart Sasha's blackmail attempts. There is an empathetic element that adds to this light thriller: Each student's secret also offers a brief look into a common adolescent dilemma. Set after the Covid-19 lockdowns, the novel also addresses repercussions from the pandemic. Jack, who has a Vietnamese American father and White mother, experiences anti-Asian racism, and Henry's father's restaurant closed due to the pandemic, leaving the household financially insecure. The author links these diverging storylines in just the right places to drive the twists and turns, bolstering an underlying anti-bullying theme. The main characters, other than Jack, present White; names signal ethnic diversity in the supporting cast. A socially conscious whodunit. (Thriller. 9-12) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.