True Murder, By Yaba Badoe

A staid Devon boarding school; a wide-eyed new girl, too imaginative for her own good; a charismatic queen bee of a fellow-pupil and her "exotic variant of the human family"; an unsettling discovery of "bones in the attic" that the two soul-buddies aim to explore: the neo-Gothic ghost of Daphne du Maurier will be chuckling with glee over this accomplished and atmospheric debut.

Yaba Badoe's twist is that newcomer Ajuba, with her true-crime mags and crush on Polly Venus, hails from Ghana. A troubled back-story there thickens the aura of mystery and the gathering menace.