This is the third in a series of which I've read no others - and have no intention of doing so since I didn't like this one. I made it through only two chapters before I gave up because of first person voice and poor writing. This is a Nancy Drew wannabe novel and while admittedly that bar is low, this novel failed to clear it.
The story is supposed to be about an evidently spoiled-rotten Skylar whose parents have moved her into a mansion, which of course automatically has a mystery. Skylar finds a clue written in code in a jewelry box, which inexplicably "opens the door to a world of danger."
Skylar is supposed to discover a "shocking image" that "glows in the beam from Skylar's black light" Why the author is so afraid to use the term 'UV light' I don't know. 'Black light', which is a contradiction in terms, seems to be her go-to phrase, but the thing is that if Skyler were so smart, she'd know that blood doesn't glow in UV light, so the image is not done in blood, but something else - so not really shocking! Forensic scientists can only make blood glow in UV light by spraying the area with a substance like Luminol.
The book blurb tells us that there are poems in Xandra's diary - which naturally Skylar uncovers - and which contain clues to the location of a key, but why would Xandra - the murdered heiress - write clues in her own poems? Was her memory so bad that she couldn't remember where she left the key? If so how would she remember that she'd left clues in her poems? LOL! And how would she ever solve them?! None of this makes a lick of sense at all. Neither does the idiot book blurb when it asks: "Can the team determine how the heiress went missing...before Skylar suffers the same fate?" because we know this author isn't going to kill off her cash cow. Duh! There's no danger to see here. Move along.
Fortunately, I never made it that far because the first person annoying voice irked me, and the stupid description of Skylar's first day back at school - a school she had already been attending - was written like this was a brand new school where she knew no one! Barf. Also the ridiculously caricatured school bully nonsense was a major turn off. I know this isn't aimed at my age range, but come on! I've read a sufficient number of decent middle-grade novels to know that it's perfectly possible to write an intelligent 'grown-up' book for kids instead of playing to every lowest and most childish denominator an author can find. I can't commend this garbage at all.
