The Sixes

by:  Kate White
publisher:  HarperCollins
publish date:  August 1, 2011

Phoebe Hall’s New York life is unexpectedly derailed off the fast track when her long-term boyfriend leaves just as she is accused of plagiarizing her latest bestselling celebrity biography. Looking for a quiet place to pick up the pieces, Phoebe jumps at the offer to teach at a small private college in a rustic Pennsylvania town run by her former boarding school roommate and close friend, Glenda Johnson.

But the campus’s quaint cafes and looming maple trees belie evil happenings. The body of a junior girl washes up from the nearby river and soon, hidden secrets begin to surface among the students: rumors of past crimes and abuses wrought by a mythic secret society known as The Sixes.

Determined to find answers and help Glenda, Phoebe quietly embarks on a search for clues—a quest that soon raises dark memories of her own boarding school days. Plunging deeper into danger with every step, Phoebe knows she’s close to unmasking a killer. But with truth comes a deeply terrifying revelation: the past can’t be outrun . . . and starting over can be a crime punishable by death.

I won't say that this was my most favorite murder mystery book, but I did end up liking it in the end.   It felt slow and plodding in the beginning.  It was like there was just the teensiest bit of something interesting that kept me going.  But I did keep going and that's what counts right?

Usually books like this are fairly predictable, kinda chick-lit cozies, but this one was well thought out.  It had some surprising little twists and turns.  The pranks of The Sixes were more evil than I would have expected.

The last third of the book has much better pacing and I enjoyed it much more than than the beginning.  I was more engaged in what was going on, whereas before I almost cheering for the bad guys so something interesting would happen.

There's an interesting little topic that kept coming up in this book.  It talked about the dumbing down of men in our society.  Basically it talked about how we're all so focused on Girl Power that boys are getting left behind.  As a mother of 3 daughters I don't have much experience with that, but I wondered if there was anything to it.