Parents' Guide to Two Can Keep a Secret

This teen murder thriller commits the crime of not being very thrilling. The premise of Two Can Keep a Secret is good: Two teens find themselves in the middle of a murder mystery very similar to crimes committed years earlier, and there's a good chance the killer is a town resident. The main characters are solid and engaging, and author Karen M. McManus doesn't give away too much and keeps readers guessing until the end. Some of the plot points provide a good look at survivor's guilt and how it can damage lives. Unfortunately, the story unfolds too slowly and isn't exciting or tense enough.

Part of the problem is that the story has too many characters, which doesn't give McManus enough space to give them depth or make them intriguing. In fact, so many names are introduced in the first few chapters, it can be hard to keep track. Aside from the four main characters -- Ellery, Ezra, Malcolm, and Mia -- all the other characters are broad clichés: snobby, rich, popular girls; football-player jocks who are violent bullies; a rich, powerful dad. McManus uses alternating points of view to tell the story, switching narration between Ellery and her friend Malcolm. This technique doesn't work well here, because their voices aren't written differently enough to be distinctive, and sometimes they don't alternate chapters.