Upper School Summer Reading (2022): Mystery/Thriller/Dystopian

This book represents how does the government treats its citizens.

Recommended by Frank Chen and Ivan

What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors.

Recommended by Clarice Xu

"Welcome to dinner, and again, congratulations on being selected. Now you must do the selecting." What do the queen bee, star athlete, valedictorian, stoner, loner, and music geek all have in common? They were all invited to a scholarship dinner, only to discover it's a trap. Someone has locked them into a room with a bomb, a syringe filled with poison, and a note saying they have an hour to pick someone to kill...or else everyone dies. Amber Prescott is determined to get her classmates and herself out of the room alive, but that might be easier said than done. No one knows how they're all connected or who would want them dead. As they retrace the events over the past year that might have triggered their captor's ultimatum, it becomes clear that everyone is hiding something. And with the clock ticking down, confusion turns into fear, and fear morphs into panic as they race to answer the biggest question: Who will they choose to die?

On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention. Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule. Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess. Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing. Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher. And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High's notorious gossip app. Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention Simon's dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn't an accident. On Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, he'd planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who's still on the loose?

When a curator at the Louvre is murdered, Robert Langdon must find his killer. I just think it is really interesting. It is very suspenseful and a great thriller. I learned a lot about the history of art and symbolism as well.

Recommended by Colin Padgett

Meet Vish Puri, India's most private investigator. In hot and dusty Delhi, where call centers and malls are changing the ancient fabric of Indian life, Puri's main work comes from screening prospective marriage partners, a job once the preserve of aunties and family priests. But when an honest public litigator is accused of murdering his maidservant, it takes all of Puri's resources to investigate. With his team of undercover operatives, Puri combines modern techniques with principles of detection established in India more than two thousand years ago, and reveals modern India in all its seething complexity.

Delia's new house isn't just a house. Long ago, it was the Piven Institute for the Care and Correction of Troubled Females -- an insane asylum nicknamed "Hysteria Hall." However, many of the inmates were not insane, just defiant and strong willed. Kind of like Delia herself. But the house still wants to keep "troubled" girls locked away. So, in the most horrifying way, Delia becomes trapped. And that's when she learns that the house is also haunted.

When Evie's father returned home after World War II, the family fell back into its normal life pretty quickly. But Joe Spooner brought more back with him than just good war stories. When movie-star handsome Peter Coleridge, a young ex-GI who served in Joe's company in postwar Austria, shows up, Evie is suddenly caught in a complicated web of lies that she only slowly recognizes. She finds herself falling for Peter, ignoring the family secrets that surround him-until he mysteriously disappears. Now Evie must find out what happened-and how far she'll go to protect her family.

Mr. Griffin is the strictest teacher at Del Norte High, with a penchant for endless projects and humiliating his students. Even straight-A student Susan can't believe how mean he is to the charismatic Mark Kinney. So when her crush asks Susan to help a group of students teach a lesson of their own, she goes along. After all, it's a harmless prank, right? But things don't go according to plan. When one "accident" leads to another, people begin to die. Susan and her friends must face the awful truth: one of them is a killer. Leave the lights on when reading this classic thriller!

The novel is a classic English ghost story--a chilling tale of a malevolent specter haunting a rural town. However, there are enough plot twists to keep the most sophisticated reader interested; it's a fantastic thriller.

-- Recommended by Christine Thorn

If you are a fan of the Con artist, like Ocean’s Eleven, then Not A Penny More, Not a Penny Less will take you on the ultimate ride. Four strangers come together for revenge against a man who swindled them out of their fortune. -- Recommended by Steve Scott