The Thread was indeed a little Twisted

From Goodreads:
When beautiful but aloof Claire Harkness is found dead in her dorm room one spring morning, prestigious Armitage Academy is shaken to its core. Everyone connected to school, and to Claire, finds their lives upended, from the local police detective who has a personal history with the academy, to the various faculty and staff whose lives are immersed in the daily rituals associated with it.

Everyone wants to know how Claire died, at whose hands, and more importantly, where the baby that she recently gave birth to is a baby that almost no one, except her small innermost circle, knew she was carrying.

At the center of the investigation is Madeline Christopher, an intern in the English department who is forced to examine the nature of the relationship between the school s students and the adults meant to guide them. As the case unravels, the dark intricacies of adolescent privilege at a powerful institution are exposed, and both teachers and students emerge as suspects as the novel rushes to its thrilling conclusion.
With The Twisted Thread, Charlotte Bacon has crafted a gripping and suspenseful story in the tradition of Donna Tartt s The Secret History, one that pulls back the curtain on the lives of the young and privileged.

What I thought:

First of all, I liked the book and I loved the main character.  I think the main problem I had with this book was the misplaced character development.  There were such long spaces between the action parts while the author was trying to introduce the characters, I felt the sometimes the focus was on the wrong details and it left me hanging and wanting to skim, and I don't typically like doing that.  I feel as though some of the details about how the detective likes his coffee probably could have been left out.  Plus, with all of the descriptions in the middle, I was forgetting some of the things that were happening that tied it all together at the end and made it make sense. 
I will say that it's a shame that a lot of private schools have the same image as Ambridge and that students get ridiculed for being a bit different.  It's a sad and hard truth.  I am glad that this book brought that to attention.  Like I said, the plot was good and I fell in love with the main characters but maybe the writing could have been re-sectioned--if that makes sense.

Rating: 3