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Hill's taut third Hester Thursby mystery (after 2019's The Missing Ones) centers on Boston's Prescott University, a for-profit art school run by the predatory Matson family. Thirty-something Vanessa Matson acts as president, her husband is CFO, and working-class Maxine Pawlikowski slaves tirelessly as director of admissions. All seems well, until Maxine discovers some dodgy enrollment data. She taps diminutive but dauntless Harvard research librarian Hester, who sleuths on the side, to resolve the discrepancies, which reveal a web of troubles, including the mysterious drowning of a Matson toddler decades ago. When a pregnant Prescott coed is murdered, the scandals burst forth to embroil Hester, the police, and a renegade graffiti artist. This complex case revolves around "mothers and daughters," as Hester knowingly muses, confronting fissures in her family as well as the Matsons'. Quirky characters complement the suspenseful plot. Readers will agree that a failing school makes a grade-A mystery. Agent: Robert Guinsler, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Jan.)

The members of a highly respectable circle of friends and relatives have very different reasons for keeping secrets. When Harvard librarian Hester Thursby and her non-husband, veterinarian Morgan Maguire, attend the opening of a campus center at Boston's Prescott University, the wealthy Matson family's for-profit institution, they're joined by Hester's friend Sergeant Angela White. Barret, one of the waiters, a trans student at Prescott, has had an unpleasant experience with the university's CFO, Gavin Dean, who's married to the institution's president, Vanessa Matson. At the request of Prescott administrator Maxine Pawlikowski, whose brother is Angela's boss at the Boston Police Department, Hester and Angela leave the opening to investigate a burglary at the home of Jennifer and Tucker Matson, Vanessa's parents. Jennifer has been a recluse since her younger daughter drowned years before, and her claims about the burglary ring hollow to Maxine, Hester, and Angela. Although many of these people have been unacquainted, Hester's work helping Maxine clear up some suspected financial wrongdoing at Prescott brings them together. Hester's never resolved her problems with her mother, and everyone else is hiding crippling, deep-seated secrets that are dragged into the open when Barret's girlfriend is found dead. Hester, an experienced researcher and finder of lost people, uncovers enough evidence to indicate that the Matson daughter's drowning was suspicious. Angela hates to admit the possibility of her lieutenant's complicity but knows that Maxine will do anything to protect Vanessa. The secrets finally come tumbling out in a frenzy of lies and violence. Complex characterization and a masterly mystery make this a superior read. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.