The Game Is Afoot

In Bryant’s funny sequel to It’s Elementary, 32-year-old Mavis returns to amateur sleuthing at Knoll Elementary School. She has impulsively quit her day job and doesn’t know how she’ll support herself. As a single mother, she feels pushed and pulled by her loved ones, her beloved daughter, her live-in father, her new boyfriend, and her ex-husband. Now Mavis has more time to be involved with her daughter’s school activities and the other students’ mothers, many of whom are recruiting for multilevel marketing schemes. In Mavis’s gentrifying California suburb, overinvolved parents are fiercely ambitious and protective of their children and appear willing to do anything to push their children forward—but is one of them ruthless enough to murder the soccer coach? None of the school parents is who they seem, and Mavis finds herself in mortal danger when she least expects it. A fast-paced, warm portrait of a devoted mother trying her best, this novel ends on a cliffhanger, suggesting a third series installment is in the works.