Fierce teens and found-family energy power this action-packed small-town murder mystery.
We meet Ayden the morning after a night out with his best friend Matthew. It was a big night for everyone in the sleepy small town of Rogland: the mayor’s annual town fair.
In keeping with town fair tradition, after the adults go to bed, Rogland’s teenagers go into the woods to party. At the end of the night, local bullies throw Matthew’s car keys into a dark field, delaying the best friends’ journey home for so long that they eventually give up looking and walk home. Ayden wakes up feeling groggy; Matthew, it turns out, does not make it home.
Matthew’s body is found in an abandoned barn on the far side of town, strung up and adorned with cult symbols, though there’s no knowledge of cult activity in Rogland. Ayden is convinced the bullies are involved, retracing Matthew’s steps that night, which turns into a race against the clock and the local cops.
When another teenager is killed, Ayden is found in a compromising position and framed for the murder. What begins as an eerie snapshot of small-town life becomes a sharply written, unputdownable portrait of a teenage boy’s world unraveling.
Ayden’s life goes from predictably boring to one where he doesn’t know if he’ll survive the day, let alone know where he’ll sleep that night. When Matthew’s secret boyfriend introduces himself to Ayden, he offers the help of his chaotic but loyal crew of outcasts. This crew brings hope into Ayden’s future, infusing the novel with tremendous found-family energy.
When we catch our breath between The Body in Zeller’s Barn’s thrilling twists, author Arian Harandi shows us its beating heart through the emotional toll on Ayden. Not just of his best friend’s death, but the fact that he’s been on the run since; no time to process or grieve while he investigates cover-up murders and proves his innocence. Through Ayden, we understand the loss of the titular body found in Zeller’s barn: Matthew, who was excited to introduce his best friend to his boyfriend; who proudly wore an oversized jacket “that he was still planning on growing into. Having stitched on a few patches from bands that most people had never heard of, it was his goal to have the jacket completely covered by the time it fit properly.” It’s heart-wrenching for readers, who see how well Ayden fits in with the eclectic crew Matthew was about to introduce him to and how magnificently these underdogs turn Ayden’s world into something he wouldn’t have dared to dream of even a few days earlier.
The Body in Zeller’s Barn is graphic novel-esque in all the fun parts—gas explosions, vivid imagery, villains cartoonish in character and in scale of evil deeds. The novel is stacked with staggering reveals, clues falling into place with precision. It’s also genuinely hilarious! The author plays with murder mystery tropes and our expectations of police protocol by making this the smallest-town crime scene of all time. Every stage of this investigation is the first time the local “expert” in charge has encountered such a thing. One of my favorite running jokes is Ayden’s inability to hide his frustration with the new Deputy Sheriff, who keeps referring to Matthew as “the Maddison boy” despite knowing him as Matthew when they were all in class together literally last year.
The teenage boy vibes in this book are immaculate! These kids are fighting for their lives and getting justice for their friends, but they are still absolutely teenagers. There’s the laugh-out-loud only-a-teenager realness of Ayden questioning a classmate’s alibi, to which they respond: “Not that it’s any of your goddamn business, but I was getting laid, okay? After I left, I went and had sex with my girlfriend. Which is a sentence you will never be able to say honestly.” Later, when recounting a confrontation with suspects that turns into a fight scene, Ayden’s narration mentions taking off his shirt to reveal his six-pack—interrupting himself to admit that, yes, fine, he added that part in “to make myself look a little more badass.”
Ayden does not know how to act around teenage girls, frequently saying the most awkward thing imaginable, which the author uses to trojan-horse in a realization about his casual masculinity being an inherent threat: When Ayden goes undercover to question suspects about one-on-one conversations he had with them earlier in the book, he’s caught off guard by the young women recalling that they were afraid of him. He sits with the discomfort of behavior that he believed was harmless tactlessness, now reflected as signs that triggered alarm bells for his classmates. It’s very powerful!
If you love twisted-but-tender, audacious teenager-fueled graphic novels Deadly Class and One Piece (or their live-action adaptations), you should get your hands on this book immediately. The Body in Zeller’s Barn is a rollercoaster ride for readers who love small-town mysteries, underdog wins, and stopping bullies who believe they’ll never get caught. You’ll even get a dose of true-crime podcast-making magic when Ayden teams up with an investigative reporter to uncover the truth.
Days after reading The Body in Zeller’s Barn, I still feel like my world was rocked by everything that happened in it—as though I’m a Rogland local who was caught up in the whirlwind. Arian Harandi’s writing gives each brilliant twist an emotional weight, delivering shocking revelations alongside an understanding of the shifting reality they trigger. I laughed out loud as many times as I held my breath in suspense. Even knowing who killed Matthew, I would reread this high-octane mystery in a heartbeat.
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