Red Leaves [Paperback] Paullina Simons

Kristina Kim seems to have it all at Dartmouth — brains, beauty, a coveted spot in an elite clique. But when she vanishes without a trace one November, her disappearance fractures the careful facades of everyone who thought they knew her. Detective Albert Maplethorpe arrives to untangle a web of secrets: the boyfriend who loved her too much, the best friend who envied her, the professor whose interest crossed lines. Paullina Simons writes with the precision of a thriller and the emotional weight of literary fiction, peeling back the glossy surface of Ivy League life to reveal obsession, jealousy, and the kind of loneliness that thrives in crowds. This isn't just a mystery about what happened to Kristina — it's about the versions of ourselves we perform for others, and what simmers underneath. For fans of dark campus novels and psychological mysteries that ask uncomfortable questions about complicity and truth.