Win, Lose, Kill, Die by Cynthia Murphy

Title: Win, Lose, Kill, Die

Author: Cynthia Murphy

Genre: Thriller

Publisher: Scholastic Australia

Published: 1^st March 2025

Format: Paperback

Pages: 320

Price: $19.99

Synopsis: Everyone wants to be head girl … until the murders begin. The students at Morton Academy are high achievers, selected based on academic excellence. So, when a series of murders target the school’s brightest and best, the pressure is on. Someone is determined to clear their path to the top and they’ll stop at nothing. But who is it? And can they be stopped?

~*~

The students of Morton Academy are back for the new academic year following a traumatic summer. But things aren’t going smoothly, because everyone wants to be head girl…and all the head girls are dying. The best students are being murdered – but by whom? And why? What is driving these murders? Liz and her friends, Taylor, Kat, Jameela, Frank, Emily and Cole are eager to find out what is happening and why – before it is too late for any of them.

Cynthia Murphy’s latest novel is a murder mystery set in a remote high school. Where nobody is allowed access to modern technology, the classes are small, and everyone is isolated. It’s this isolation, the limit of fifty students per year, and the chance to get deep into areas of interest that attracted Liz Williams and so many others to the school. The murders kick off with Jameela being poisoned – and of course, everything is shrouded in mystery as each death is covered up, the school closes itself in…trying to ensure the prestige of the academy and distancing itself from rumours that arise.

The world of this book is shrouded in secret societies, rituals, and secrecy that bolster those who become head girl. The ones who get everything they want, embarking on a world of privilege that showcases what power and money, prestige and fame can do, and how it can impact and influence people. It examines the lengths people will go to get this power, and how being in an environment where things are talked about in hushed tones, and where privilege and money speaks. It also asks the question – what if different decisions had been made? What if things had gone differently – would the murders have still happened, or would the story have been completely different? As a young adult crime novel, it explores the intricate world of being a teenager and having so many expectations thrust upon you. It brings rituals and secrecy into it to explain, or try to explain why things are happening the way that they are. Because whenever strange things happen, people look for an explanation – any explanation other than the obvious one. Even when all the clues are there.

Piecing this mystery together was thrilling – everything seemed to fit but at the same time, it didn’t. There were too many threads that needed to be pulled together, dangling along until the final pages. Each character is someone you can like, and watching the perfect façade crumble is almost like watching a train wreck or accident – you can’t take your eyes away from it. I needed to see how it all played out. The clever reveals ensure that everything comes together effectively – and in sinister ways that we may never have thought possible.