The Amateurs

The Amateurs

by Sara Shepard

One minute, Helena Kelly is celebrating the first snowfall of the year with her younger sister, Aerin. The next minute, she has completely disappeared from their sleepy little Connecticut town. Still searching for answers five years later, Aerin seeks assistance from a cold-case message board. Enter Seneca, a college freshman who has been following the Kelly case religiously from the beginning. When her friend Maddie invites her to spend spring break investigating the case, how can Seneca refuse? But, someone seems determined to keep this case cold.

This book was so addictive, I could not put it down. While there are ultimately five sleuths on the case, the book is narrated in turn by four of them. As a result, there is the occasional repetition of information, but I didn't mind it too much because it provided a reminder of some key information.

As a mystery enthusiast, I love being able to solve the mystery before the main characters. And this book is chock full of mysteries. However, I was only about a step ahead of the detectives. And the whodunit ended up being a complete surprise. In a good way.

While this book is written with an obvious to be continued, the mysteries in this book felt unfinished. Although we end up learning what happened to Aerin's sister and figure out the identity of a murderer, we never really learn the murderer's motive. I would have liked to have a few more details(view spoiler)[, such as whether the victim knew her attacker, whether the location of the death was significant, whether the murderer left the victim behind intentionally or had to leave before having a chance to hide the body (hide spoiler)].I look forward to hopefully finding some of these answers in the next book.
This story does get an inkspots because the excessive use of drugs and alcohol in minor is not frowned upon. Overall, I would rate this story four and a half quills and place it on my top shelf.