Everyone expects Lydia Chass to be perfect. It's in her name, famous throughout Henley as one associated with excellence and charity. Through guidance-counselor error, she is one credit shy of graduation. But Lydia has a plan. She'll earn that final credit by producing a podcast about a single tragic week in the 1990s, known as Henley's "long stretch of bad days," which saw a tornado, flash flood, and the town's sole homicide. Luckily (or maybe unluckily), she teams up with Bristal Jamison--Lydia's opposite in scholastic achievement and reputation--whose own checkered family history is wrapped up in the "long stretch." Quickly, they find out that when you dig up the past, there's always someone who wants to keep truths buried. McGinnis presents Lydia as an entitled know-it-all yet still manages to establish her as a charismatic narrator. The author's command of voice is excellent, making it a joy to see how Lydia clashes with Henley's other denizens, especially Bristal. Ultimately, both girls must question the legacies of their families in this page-turner of a mystery. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: McGinnis can be counted upon for delivering gritty truths wrapped in compelling stories, and readers love her for it.

Small-town secrets provide steady fuel for an ambitious teen looking to secure a spot in a top journalism program. Lydia Chass is enraged when she learns her high school guidance counselor's oversight has jeopardized her graduation, and she threatens to expose his alcohol use disorder unless she's permitted to quickly make up her missing history credit. Ever the plotter, she pulls in Bristal Jamison, a senior also in need of a credit for graduation, whose delinquent behavior and bad family reputation will put a sharper edge on On the Ground in Flyover Country, Lydia's podcast about their hometown of Henley, Ohio, thus making it more likely to catch the eyes of Ivy League admissions officers. Bristal and Lydia's emerging friendship and Lydia's self-absorption and understanding of her own class privilege evolve realistically as the pair decide to focus on an unsolved homicide that occurred in the 1990s and was discovered during a devastating week in which Henley suffered both a tornado and flash flood--and that may not have been the only crime to take place. In this tightknit community, their sleuthing produces uncomfortable questions that lead back to people close to them in difficult ways. Wickedly comic dialogue and interesting characters--particularly wonderfully lewd feminist Bristal--will keep readers engaged through the many twists and turns. All main characters read White. A clever and often darkly funny mystery. (Mystery. 14-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

This animated and good-humored tale by McGinnis (The Last Laugh) features an intrepid teenage odd couple working together to gain entry into a prestigious journalism program by solving a mystery. Due to a mistake made by her high school guidance counselor, 18-year-old valedictorian Lydia Chass has just learned that she doesn't have enough history credits to graduate. Her school principal suggests that if Lydia--who hosts a podcast called On the Ground in Flyover Country--records some episodes on the history of her Henley, Ohio, town, he'll grant her the necessary credits. Hoping to give the podcast some much-needed grit, Lydia recruits acerbic classmate Bristal Jamison, who's in a similar bind. They decide to focus on the 1994 unsolved murder of 65-year-old local trailer resident Randall Boggs, which leads them to a cold case involving a missing teenage girl. Together, the girls uncover decades-old secrets and reveal chilling truths about their small town and its close-knit community. Lydia and Bristal's wry banter, their polar opposite characterizations, and their evolving, convoluted friendship lend a refreshing and dark joviality to this cleverly realized feminist thriller. All main characters are white. Ages 14--up. Agent: Adriann Ranta Zurhellen, Folio Literary. (Mar.)

Gr 9 Up--Lydia Chass is a serious overachiever: volunteering, extracurriculars, extra coursework, even her own podcast, On the Ground in Flyover Country. Bristal Jamison is nothing like Lydia, but she's determined to be the first high school graduate in her family. When a counselor's mistake leaving both seniors a half-credit short of graduation turns into a team effort to revamp Lydia's podcast to focus on local history, the girls begin researching a series of 1994 events known in Henley as the "long stretch of bad days," when a tornado, a flood, and the town's only murder occurred within a three-day period. Lydia's defense attorney father has taught her plenty about the sliding spectrum of morality, but it becomes harder to stand up for what she knows is right when it becomes clear that someone is willing to resort to violence again to keep certain truths about the long stretch hidden, leaving Bristal and Lydia to decide how much the truth is really worth. McGinnis's ability to take readers on an emotional rollercoaster is on full display here; Lydia and Bristal's magnetic (entirely platonic) chemistry shifts smoothly but instantly from laugh-out-loud funny to powerfully somber. Brash yet buoyant Bristal and self-aggrandizing but steel-willed Lydia are wonderfully realistic and entertaining characters, and the mysteries, twists, and secrets they uncover are expertly crafted. VERDICT Another incredibly wild ride from McGinnis; a first purchase for all teen collections.--Allie Stevens