Murder of Crows discussion

In the Hall with the Knife by Diana Peterfreund

Summary:
When a storm strikes at Blackbrook Academy, an elite prep school nestled in the woods of Maine, a motley crew of students—including Beth “Peacock” Picach, Orchid McKee, Vaughn Green, Sam “Mustard” Maestor, Finn Plum, and Scarlet Mistry—are left stranded on campus with their headmaster. Hours later, his body is found in the conservatory and it’s very clear his death was no accident. With this group of students who are all hiding something, nothing is as it seems, and everyone has a motive for murder. Fans of the CLUE board game and cult classic film will delight in Diana Peterfreund’s modern reimagining of the brand, its characters, and the dark, magnificent old mansion with secrets hidden within its walls.

My thoughts:
It reads as a good YA thriller that is heavily based off of Clue. I was expecting less of an obvious nod towards the game, but it is very clear about the characters as the game pieces. (view spoiler)[ I also thought it was hilarious that the one that was murdered was named Mr. Boddy. I was guessing that's who would be killed so that was obvious, but I still thought it was clever. (hide spoiler)]

I had two working theories while reading the book. The first was a thought I had early in the book which was that (view spoiler)[that Orchid’s people had found her and that Mr. Boddy was working for them or something and Vaughn killed Boddy in an effort to save her. (hide spoiler)] The second was further in the book when characters were more developed. (view spoiler)[ I had suspected Mr. White (at first because it seemed as though no one was accusing her at all) and when she obsessively talked about how much she loved Blackbrook and doesn’t want it to ever change I thought “Ah, there’s the smoking gun!” (hide spoiler)]

The book was like any generic mystery book in the sense that someone was killed, they all panic, they find the killer, and everyone leaves. The only thing that sets it apart is (view spoiler)[ that it actually wasn’t Mr. White that killed Mr. Boddy, it was one of the identical Green twins, Oliver, the evil one. Was she looking out for the boys? Since she knew their grandma and is also a local? I personally wouldn’t see what she has to gain from that. Even if it was to keep them in school, Blackbrook doesn’t know there's two of them attending as one. They think it’s just Vaughn, so no loss there if Oliver goes down for it.

I was also confused how and why the twins Oliver and Vaughn kept switching places throughout the entirety of the book. It makes sense to do that during school, but like why did Vaughn go along with it for so long? Why didn’t he just alert the authorities since he was in the town when Oliver was with the others?

Another thing that was different was Orchid’s past and her trying to be secretive about her being at Blackbrook. I just thought it would be a larger deal since it was talked about so much in the book. That’s why one of my theories had a focus on Orchid. I’m not sure if this will come into play in the next book (or if the next book will have completely different characters), but it also wasn’t elaborated on too much. Just the repeated “They can’t know who I really am.” (hide spoiler)]

Overall, not a terrible read. It sounded like plots were being set up for later books which is a reason I struggled with this book; there was no completion to these subplots in the book. Maybe they’ll be analyzed more in the next book, but I also think it would be hard to continue the Clue theme with the same characters.