Welcome to Amontillado, Ohio, where your last name is worth more than money, and secrets can be kept… for a price.

Tress Montor knows that her family used to mean something—until she didn’t have a family anymore. When her parents disappeared seven years ago while driving her best friend home, Tress lost everything. She might still be a Montor, but the entire town shuns her now that she lives with her drunken, one-eyed grandfather at what locals refer to as the “White Trash Zoo,” – a wild animal attraction.

Felicity Turnado has it all – looks, money, and a secret that she’s kept hidden. She knows that one misstep could send her tumbling from the top of the social ladder, and she’s worked hard to make everyone forget that she was with the Montors the night they disappeared. Felicity has buried what she knows so deeply that she can’t even remember what it is… only that she can’t look at Tress without having a panic attack.

Tress has a plan. A Halloween costume party at an abandoned house provides the ideal situation for Tress to pry the truth from Felicity – brick by brick – as she slowly seals her former best friend into a coal chute. With a drunken party above them, and a loose panther on the prowl, Tress will have her answers – or settle for revenge.

Reviews

★ “Well-versed Poe fans will gobble this up, but the heartache, revenge, and anger that ooze from these pages should entice any reader.” - School Library Journal (starred review)

★ “A dark, Poe-inspired thriller that lives up to the gothic master.” - Kirkus (starred review)

“In this gothic thriller, McGinnis cleverly weaves elements from Edgar Allen Poe’s stories to chronicle the dissolution of a friendship, culminating in a shocking act of vengeance.” - Booklist

“McGinnis has crafted an artful tire fire that burns so bright and hot that I couldn't look away.” - NPR Review of Books

“If Edgar Allan Poe came back to write the scariest high school murder story ever, it probably wouldn’t be half as good as Mindy McGinnis’s The Initial Insult. You must read this book!”  - James Patterson

"Expertly crafted and absolutely chilling. Mindy McGinnis holds nothing back in this twisty, ruthlessly compelling story of a friendship gone wrong." - Karen M. McManus, #1 New York Times bestselling author of One of Us Is Lying