“The Savage Kind” by John Copenhaver

We wanted to like this thriller about two teen girls trying to solve a murder much more than we did.

Suspense novels involving motherless girls who decide to get to the bottom of a heinous mystery in their midst have been a beloved trope in the mystery genre for a reason -- the ups and downs of being an adolescent girl combined with the need to escape and set the world right is an alluring storytelling formula.