British adult romance author Pippa Roscoe, writing as P.C. Roscoe, makes her U.S. YA debut with How the Other Half Kill, a dramatic whodunit set among the rich and powerful on a private Caribbean island.
Avery Finch, Hugo Vandenburg, twins Sydney and Archie Devereux, and Leo Walker have spent their summers on Mokani Island since they were children. Now, the five college-age teens are together again to spend 12 days "on an island so beautiful, so luxurious, only a few of the world's wealthiest people [have] ever set foot on it." However, Avery brought a guest--Nora, her not-wealthy freshman roommate--and is uncomfortable around Hugo, whom she recently broke up with. Hugo is angry and hiding a massive betrayal by one of his fathers, "the gazillionaire owners" of Mokani. Sydney, Avery's best friend, disappeared at the beginning of freshman year without explanation; Archie is being evasive; and Leo, the son of the resort's prestigious Afro-Caribbean private chef and the only non-white kid in the crew, is staff this year. Each teen is hiding something, every parent has a secret, and someone makes the deadly mistake of trying to bring wrongdoing to light.
While this thriller takes its time getting to the thrills, once they arrive, Roscoe's nail-biter takes off. The story shifts among Avery's, Hugo's, and Leo's points of view, three unreliable narrators who share half-truths, confused alliances, and vague understandings of the island's interpersonal politics. The identity of the victim may be unsurprising, but the eventual reveal of the murderer and a sneaky epilogue will almost certainly send readers immediately back to page one. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness