“The cabdriver used both of his big fat feet when he drove, jamming on the brakes and the gas at the same time, making me sick.”

From James Patterson and Maxine Paetro’s Confessions: The Private School Murders.

Orphaned teenager, Tandoori (Tandy) Angel is doing her best to pick up the shattered pieces of her life after her millionaire parents’ death and murder investigation, which isn’t easy in the fishbowl that is New York City.  The Angel siblings (Matthew, Tandy, Harry, and Hugo) are brilliant, strong, and hot-tempered, just like their parents raised them to be.  Just as it seems things might calm down for the Angel family now that they have been placed with a new guardian named Jacob, Tandy’s oldest brother is wrongly put on trial for the murder of his girlfriend, and the whirlwind of press and police investigations begins again.  Tandy must try to find the real killer in Matthew’s case before it’s too late and she loses another family member.  The only escape that Tandy can find is at school… until the deaths of several girls at fancy private schools across the city push Tandy into investigating the murders before she becomes the next victim. As if her unofficial investigations weren’t enough, Tandy also tries to remember how a boy named James fits into the muddled mystery that is her past.

Patterson and Paetro’s sequel to Confessions of a Murder Suspect picks up shortly after the first book, building off the positives and filling in the gaps.  Tandy is the same opinionated and cunning girl from the first book, but she has also matured some after the death of her parents.  The story line is very quick-paced and full of action, as Tandy is wrapped up in multiple “investigations” at one time.  The ending is satisfying, because the mysteries are solved and the clues obvious in retrospect.  While The Private School Murders leaves a strong starting point for the next books in the series, it is also a must read because of the captivating mystery laid out on the pages.