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Review: Blood in the Water

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By Tiffany D. Jackson
New York: Scholastic, 2025. Fiction. 255 pages.

12-year-old Kaylani McKinnon can't help but feel like a fish out of water. She's a Brooklyn girl spending her summer on Martha's Vineyard surrounded by wealthy family friends in their mansion. All she really wants is to stay home all summer where she her incarcerated father can easily reach her, and she can keep working to find ways to prove him innocent of fraud and embezzlement. Despite her protests, she finds herself on the island with the snooty granddaughters of her host. Soon after Kaylani's arrival, a popular teen boy is found murdered and she decides to conduct her own investigation. As she tries to discover what happened to Chadwick Cooper, Kaylani finds that not everything on Martha's Vineyard is as perfect as it appears.

Thrillers for middle grade readers can be hard to find, but Tiffany D. Jackson succeeds in her first middle grade novel. A quick moving plot, tight dialogue, and an intriguing protagonist are all wrapped into a tween appropriate novel. The history of affluent Black communities on Martha's Vineyard is seamlessly integrated into the central story, and provides a history that will be new to a lot of readers. The summery setting of this thriller may draw readers in, but this is a year-round delight.

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