Publication: 3rd May 2022 – Rock The Boat
After falling from grace last summer, Agatha Christie-obsessed Alice Ogilvie needs to stay out of trouble. While smart and reclusive Iris Adams just wants to get the hell out of Castle Cove.
But now they have a murder to solve. There are clues the police are ignoring, a list of suspects a mile long and some very dangerous cliffs.
Amateur detectives Alice and Iris are about to uncover just how many secrets their sleepy seaside town is hiding…
One of the main reasons I was drawn to The Agathas is because it’s the story of two young women who, inspired by the novels of Agatha Christie, try to solve a murder in their small town of Castle Cove. I have always been a fan of Agatha Christie and, lately, I have been rereading some of my favorite of her novels (like Death on the Nile, And Then There Were None) so I had fun reading The Agathas.
“What would Agatha Christie do? I try to channel the queen.”
The protagonists of the novel are two teenagers, Alice and Iris. At the beginning of the story, they are not friends. They come from different backgrounds and they have different interests and passions. Alice is a Main (what they call the cook kids at school!). She is rich, beautiful, and, at least until a few months ago, popular. Iris is a Zoner (the not cool kids at school). She lives alone with her mother and she works two jobs. So they have absolutely nothing in common. Although they go to the same school and also attend some of the same classes, Alice is too focused on herself to know who Iris is, until she becomes her tutor. Iris accepts to tutor Alice because she needs to earn enough money so she and her mother can escape Castle Cove and the threat that haunts them.
When one of their classmates is found dead, both Iris and Alice are drawn into the investigation: it seems Iris was the last person to see her alive, while Alice had a fight with her before she disappeared. And when the victim’s boyfriend (who is also Alice’s ex-boyfriend) is arrested, Iris and Alice are convinced he is innocent and decide to start their own investigation – which involves color-coded note cards, whiteboards, and case notes.
I really enjoyed The Agathas. It is a gripping, exciting, and witty read with two fantastic heroines. Iris and Alice form an unlikely friendship. Iris is nerd, resilient, mature with a complicated family situation. Alice is more impulsive and spoiled and she feels ignored by her parents who mostly leave her at home with her former nanny. She is a huge fan of Agatha Christie’s novels and a few months back she had disappeared for a few days (just like her heroine Agatha Christie did in 1926 giving life to an unsolved mystery that still fills the pages of books) before reappearing unharmed and with no explanation, making her the talk of the school. Despite their differences, Iris and Alice work really well together, they have great chemistry, and I wish there will be more books in which the two girls play detective!
A huge thank you to Rock The Boat and NetGalley for providing me with a proof.
Kathleen Glasgow is the New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Pieces and How to Make Friends with the Dark and has been published in 26 countries. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, where she works in an office by day and spins stories by night. You can find her on Twitter @kathglasgow, on Instagram as @misskathleenglasgow or on her website kathleenglasgowbooks.com.
Liz Lawson is the author of The Lucky Ones, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2020, and the upcoming YA mystery The Agathas which she co-wrote with NYT Bestselling author Kathleen Glasgow. She lives outside of Washington DC with her family and two cats.
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