“Murder in the Mamanuca Islands” by Caden V. is a murder mystery in the fiction section of the first college issue of Teen Ink. The piece is a focused on two Federal Secret Service agents who are on a boat in Fiji after receiving an award for their work. On a boat tour of the Mamanuca Islands, one of the agents discovers that the captain of the boat has been murdered and that one of the nine passengers murdered the captain. The piece ends with the two agents and the other passengers stuck on an island, trying to decipher who the murder is. This piece has a negative tone, considering the murder. Even without the murder, the personality of the main secret agent is not very positive, adding to the overall negative tone.

I really enjoyed this piece because it was very entertaining and was very well written. It didn’t sound overly sophisticated as if complicated words were thrown in for fun, but it sounded mature. It was suspenseful and the description put me into the scene. The gradual addition of action added to the maturity of the piece. A particular part I found interesting was, “‘Please, stay calm,’ Spade said. ‘If everyone is here, and no one got on or off, then one of us murdered the captain. We all know each other by now, plus we are on an isolated island, so there practically is no escape.’ Spade smiled warmly, ‘Now let’s get started.’” This part is the climax of the piece, and really did seem like a climax. Here, the tone of the story changes from frightful to ominous, and the author accomplished the fluidity necessary so that this is not abrupt. Overall I really liked this piece and I am happy that it was included in the November issue of Teen Ink.