The Velvet Knife by Maureen Johnson
Publication Date: September 29, 2026
Summary from Netgalley:
If you haven’t read the previous book in this series, please stop reading now. Spoilers are ahead that cannot be avoided. Thank you.
Stevie might be the greatest teenage detective Ellingham Academy and the world has ever seen, but even she can’t figure out what happened with her boyfriend, David. What she needs is a distraction: a good old-fashioned murder. Stevie is much happier dealing with dead people. They’re a lot less confusing—they don’t send cryptic texts and make out with other girls in British pubs.
But then Stevie gets exactly what she wanted when a dead body turns up in the middle of a Manhattan apartment complex, and this one is . . . complicated. Caught in a web of messy alive-people feelings, Stevie finds herself questioning all human connection. Is magnetism only manipulation? Can you trust anyone? Does anyone realize that they’re joining a cult—before it’s too late? And are things with David really over?
ARC provided by HarperCollins Children’s Books via Netgalley for an honest review.
Confession:
I have truly enjoyed the books in this series. The mysteries have always been intriguing and I enjoyed spending time in Stevie’s head while she tries to solve them. Unfortunately this time around, the whole story didn’t quite work for me. The story just felt off, especially the mysteries. The ending also did not work for me at all, which was disappointing.
We are back with Stevie and the gang and this time they are off to New York for the holidays. After the devastating ending of the last book, with David breaking up with Stevie, you can pretty much guess that she is a complete mess. The beginning of the book is a bit hard to read because of this. But she does slowly start to get her head together, which of course means that she has another mystery to solve. Stevie, does show a lot of growth throughout the book, but she kind of throws all of that out the window with the decisions she makes at the end of the book. The ending of the story just really felt off, because of this.
Just like the other books, we have a murder committed in the past, and there are two deaths in the present, which could be murder. They are all of course connected, and it is up to Stevie to figure out how. None of these deaths felt very complex however. But Stevie does manage to put it all together. Although I must say that the solution to the past murder does just falls into her lap, more or less. I did find the circumstances of the cult a very interesting one, and a bit more attention to that storyline would have made the whole book more interesting.
The writing overall is great. I felt like I was in New York for the holidays, and it was very interesting to see Stevie experiencing the city for the first time. The writing was so good that I still wanted to pick up the book and read it whenever I had a chance, even though I wasn’t finding it very challenging. As I stated before, the ending felt off and not at all in character with Stevie. It also felt like it might be the final book in the series, but I certainly hope it isn’t.
Fans of the series will certainly enjoy this one. But even though it is a ‘standalone’, if you haven’t read the other books you will feel a bit lost. I suggest that you start at the beginning as the first three books are the best of the series.
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