5 Campus Crime Novels for Back-To-School
Summer is breaking into fall. Backpacks are stuffed with new books–and so heavy. Teachers are learning their students’ names. Old friends are getting reacquainted and new friends are being made. Someone is murdered. Wait, what?! One of those may not be like the others, but we’re talking about great campus crime novels, so here we are with school supplies and murder.
Okay, so this one isn’t so much on campus as explosively starts off with a Hammel College senior driving a visiting professor to a conference when their trip ends in a tragic car accident. While everyone thinks Tara Beckley, the senior, is in a vegetative state, she isn’t. But she can’t let anyone know that because she has locked-in syndrome—she can hear, see, and think; she just can’t move or speak. Abby Kaplan is assigned to investigate the accident for insurance purposes, but since it wasn’t actually an accident, she’s also in danger. Run, woman, run!
If She Wakes is a great thriller with a fast-moving plot, teen assassin(!), awesome women, and a good audiobook narrator (Robert Petkoff). Basically, just wins all-around for readers.
This is a twisty ride that follows a man returning for his school reunion not to mingle with old acquaintances but because the gymnasium is going to be torn down, thus revealing the dead body he knows is hidden in the building. I know! And we have the added mystery element that two people disappeared from the school and they only know one is dead, but what happened to the other? Have fun changing your guess every few chapters for this starts in one place and takes you onto a whole other ride. Fun!
An excellent Japanese crime novel about a teacher on her last day of work who has quite a story for her seventh-grade class: The true story about her young daughter’s death. We then get other characters' stories about that tense day in the classroom and the young girl’s death, until we eventually get the full picture. This is a suspenseful, unique crime novel about grief and revenge that should not be missed.
Whether you love school or are glad to never ever go back, you’ll enjoy these crime novels set on school campuses in the U.S. and Japan—but maybe sharpen a pencil just in case you need a weapon to defend yourself. I mean, just a thought.
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Jamie Canavés is a Book Riot contributing editor and Tailored Book Recommendations coordinator who always has a book in one hand. She writes the Unusual Suspects mystery newsletter, never says no to chocolate or ‘80s nostalgia, and spends way too much time asking her goat-dog “What’s in your mouth?!” Tweets: @Oh_Dinky.