Amy Doak, Eleanor Jones can’t keep a secret, Penguin Australia, July 2024, 320 pp, RRP $19.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781761342424
I’m one of those readers who can’t read Book 2 before having read Book 1. So, after receiving Book 2 of this YA murder mystery series for review, I hunted down the first book and read them consecutively. It was worth the effort! I chomped through these books and I’m sure that bookish (and hopefully even not-so-bookish) young readers will do the same.
Eleanor Jones, a 16-year-old who lives with her erratic single mother, is on her ninth high school at the start of Book 1. While you could read Book 2 without having read the first book, I’d highly recommend reading the first book to get a sense of Eleanor’s place in the township of Cooinda and in her new gang of friends and frenemies at school. Book 1 has higher stakes, we know from the get-go that there’s a murderer on the loose and that Eleanor has inadvertently become a suspect.
Book 2 is a slower burn but equally rewarding just for the experience of spending time with this likable group of young adults. Eleanor can’t let it go when Nance, the old lady who she visits as part of a school program in a nursing home, reveals she’s witnessed a murder. The only problem is Nance has dementia and the details are sketchy. Eleanor and her friends start probing into the mystery. She’s also ‘helped’ by the creepy Jem who works in genealogy at the library.
There’s lots of layers in this book, including sub-plots about consent and romance, which will appeal to teenage readers. And of course, towards the end Eleanor gets up to her neck in trouble which is scary enough for this reader without overstepping.
Highly recommended.
Reviewed by Heather Gallagher
Read Eloise’s review of Eleanor Jones is not a murderer here.
