Strange Lies

Critically acclaimed author Maggie Thrash’s second novel in the Strange Truth series blends crackling suspense, subversive humor, and biting social commentary to become the “definition of a page-turner” (John Corey Whaley).

Only at Winship Academy would an evening science expo turn into a criminal fiasco. First, there’s the anonymous boy in the girls’ bathroom handing out drugs to anyone with the secret password. Then the student body president is maimed in a horrifying and tragic accident—but was it an accident or an attack?

Benny Flax and Virginia Leeds are right at the center of it all. And so is the headmaster’s son, Calvin Harker, an oddball poet whose interest in Virginia sets off alarm bells for Benny. As the case bleeds from Winship Academy to the surrounding city, the deep fault lines of racial tension in Atlanta’s history reveal explosive hatred still simmering under the city’s surface.

Once again, Maggie Thrash (author of Honor Girl) delivers a uniquely compelling, thought-provoking, and entirely riveting story.

Maggie Thrash grew up in the South. She is the author of the graphic memoir Honor Girl (a Los Angeles Times Book Prize nominee). Strange Truth and Strange Lies were inspired by her experiences at an exclusive prep school in Atlanta, where everyone had secrets.