Pretty Dead Queens

 Donne, Alexa. Pretty Dead Queens. 2022. 336p. ISBN 9780593479827. Available as an audiobook from Overdrive.

Cecelia lost her mother to a brutal cancer, and with no father in the picture she has to move from Los Angeles into her grandmother's house in a small coastal California town located hours from anywhere. Cecelia doesn't know much about her grandmother, with whom her mother cut ties with years ago, except that she is a successful murder mystery writer. The large Victorian house on the edge of town is as creepy a place to live as any of the settings in her novels, and Cecelia has difficulty adapting to a new routine with someone who might be flesh and blood, but who is a virtual stranger.

Cecelia also enrolls in the local high school, where she soon discovers that divisions run deep. Decades ago, the girl who was crowned homecoming queen was murdered in the school's pool, and the custodian who was convicted of the murder continues to proclaim his innocence. Relatives of both the victim and the convicted still live in town, and the tragedy, which was at the center of Cecelia's grandmother's first book, continues to fascinate the locals and the fans who come from far away to visit the murder scene. Enterprising high schoolers even offer a performance during the weekend, recreating the tragedy, much to the delight of the tourists who visit the town.

With so many secrets carefully piled on top of each other, Cecelia's arrival is bound to destroy the harmony the town settled on to move past the tragedy. Except that on Homecoming night, the new queen, who happens to be the Mayor's daughter, is found dead in the pool by Cecelia, wearing a similar outfit to the first girl. A copycat killer has just recreated the same scene. Secrets upon secrets begin to unravel as Cecelia's morbid fascination with the murder turns into her own private investigation. As she unearths more clues, she gets closer to the killer, who could maker her the next victim ...

Fans of murder mysteries will enjoy this fast-moving and suspenseful tragedy and copycat murder.