Books like One of Us Is Lying

Pip Fitz-Amobi picks a five-year-old murder case as her senior project and refuses to accept the official story. Holly Jackson structures the investigation through interview transcripts, research logs, and Pip's analysis, which gives the reading experience a documentary quality that pulls you in. Like One of Us Is Lying, this features a smart teen protagonist systematically working through suspects while the community resists her investigation.

Jackson plants genuine clues and genuine misdirection with equal skill. The small-town setting creates pressure similar to the high school environment in McManus's book. Everyone knows everyone, everyone has opinions, and the truth is inconvenient for people with power.

If you loved the whodunit structure and methodical deduction, this is the best companion read available.

Ellery moves to a small Vermont town with a dark history and discovers that someone is recreating crimes from the town's past. Karen McManus brings the same skills to this standalone that she brought to One of Us Is Lying. Multiple suspects, layered secrets, and a reveal that reframes everything.

The small-town setting is more atmospheric than the high school environment of One of Us Is Lying. The town's history of homecoming queens going missing adds a creepy layer of generational mystery. McManus writes red herrings masterfully, making each suspect plausible without ever feeling like she is cheating.

If you loved her voice and plotting in One of Us Is Lying, this delivers the same quality in a different package.

Avery Grambs, a girl with nothing, inherits a billionaire's fortune. The catch is she must live in his mansion for a year alongside his four grandsons, each determined to figure out why she was chosen. Jennifer Lynn Barnes builds a puzzle-box narrative where every chapter adds a new piece while reshuffling the picture.

The Hawthorne brothers are as compelling a suspect pool as McManus's detention group. Each has a distinct personality, each has motives, and each has secrets. Barnes structures her revelations perfectly, giving you enough to keep theorizing while holding back enough to surprise you.

If what you loved about One of Us Is Lying was the puzzle aspect, trying to figure out who is lying and why, The Inheritance Games scratches that itch beautifully across three books.

Stevie Bell arrives at Ellingham Academy obsessed with a decades-old kidnapping case and determined to solve it. Then people start dying in the present day too. Maureen Johnson alternates between the 1930s crime and Stevie's modern investigation, building two mysteries that illuminate each other.

The boarding school setting gives Truly Devious a different atmosphere than One of Us Is Lying's high school, more gothic and more isolated. But the detective work is similar. Stevie, like McManus's characters, must sort through secrets, lies, and alibis while dealing with the normal pressures of being a teenager.

The dual timeline adds complexity that rewards careful reading. If you loved the investigative elements of One of Us Is Lying and want a mystery with more historical depth, this series is excellent.

Six friends on a road trip. An RV that will not start. A sniper in the dark who knows one of them is hiding something.

Holly Jackson stripped the teen thriller down to its most essential elements and created something that reads like a pressure cooker. The entire novel takes place over one night, and Jackson keeps tightening the screws as each character's secrets surface under threat. Like One of Us Is Lying, this is a contained thriller where a group of friends discovers they did not know each other as well as they thought.

The stakes are more immediate, with an active threat rather than a retrospective investigation. Jackson writes real-time tension brilliantly, and the revelation of who the sniper is targeting and why delivers a satisfying payoff.

During spring break in Aruba, a girl is found murdered and her best friend is charged with the crime. The story unfolds through trial transcripts, flashbacks, and unreliable memories. Abigail Haas wrote one of the most underrated YA thrillers of the past decade.

The trial structure creates a unique reading experience where you are constantly evaluating testimony and evidence alongside the jury. Like One of Us Is Lying, every character has secrets and every revelation shifts the picture. The ending is genuinely shocking.

Not a cheap twist but a logical conclusion that you should have seen coming but absolutely will not. If you loved One of Us Is Lying for the surprise reveal and want something that pushes the format even further, Dangerous Girls is the book that keeps coming up in discussions of the best YA thriller endings ever.

When a student is found dead at an elite boarding school, soccer star Kay Donovan receives messages from the dead girl threatening to expose her secrets. To find the killer, Kay must unravel her own carefully hidden past. Dana Mele builds a mystery where the investigator is just as compromised as the suspects.

Kay is hiding something significant, and her investigation keeps circling back to her own history. Like One of Us Is Lying, this is a story where the line between victim, suspect, and investigator blurs constantly. The prep school setting adds class dynamics and social hierarchy to the mystery.

Mele writes teenage manipulation and social power games with real insight. If you loved how McManus made every character both sympathetic and suspicious, this delivers the same unsettling experience.