59 pages • 1 hour read
Karen M. McManusNothing More to Tell
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 37-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 37 Summary: “Tripp”
Ellie reveals that she coated the red marker on the desk with ultraviolet powder that will glow under the black lights at the dance, and whoever used the marker to destroy Mr. Larkin’s poster will be caught green-handed. Ellies makes a playful show of checking both Tripp’s and Brynn’s hands, which are clean. Ellie then tries to dance with Shane and Charlotte to check their hands. Shane’s hands are clean, but she can’t get close enough to check Charlotte’s before she chases her off. Tripp then notices that Mason’s hands are glowing, indicating he vandalized the picture.
Chapter 38 Summary: “Brynn”
Once Brynn sees Mason’s glowing hands, she realizes why Lila Robbins’ photograph looked so familiar: it’s a much younger version of Mason’s mom, Ms. Rafferty. This means that Mason must really be Mr. Larkin’s brother. Brynn confronts Mason about this in the auditorium, where she believes they are alone. She promises not to tell anyone—Mason explains that his father, Dexter, was abusive, and they ran away for their own safety. Mr. Solomon actually was a friend of Lila and her father, so he helped them move to Sturgis. This is why Mr. Solomon disliked Dexter and Mr. Larkin.
Mr. Larkin did tell Mason that he was his brother, shortly before he died. They were in his classroom and believed they were alone. In reality, Shane was sleeping in the closet. Mr. Larkin explained who he was, and Mason was shocked to the point of being speechless. Thus, he didn’t speak or respond the whole time. Mr. Larkin wanted to tell Dexter where Mason and Lila were, as a birthday present. This scared Mason, but he didn’t say anything, which made Mr. Larkin a bit angry. He eventually left the classroom, with Mason staying behind, still speechless, and too shocked to do anything. After a few minutes, Shane came out of the closet and stumbled out of the classroom, not seeming to even notice Mason. Mason wasn’t sure whether Shane heard anything, but he never acted any different afterward.
Mason confesses that he didn’t want Mr. Larkin to die but has been vandalizing the posters out of anger toward Dexter and toward Mr. Larkin for wanting to tell Dexter where he was. Mr. Larkin never got the chance to reveal Lila and Mason’s location before he died, because Dexter still hasn’t found Lila and Mikey/Mason. When they’re done talking, Mason goes back to the dance to find Geoff.
Charlotte then emerges and says, “Mason is Mr. Larkin’s brother?” (309), indicating she heard the whole thing. Brynn begs Charlotte not to tell anyone. Charlotte seems to agree, but also warns Brynn to stop snooping around. Brynn then comforts Charlotte because Shane broke up with her at the dance.
Chapter 39 Summary: “Tripp”
While Brynn is in earshot, Shane drunkenly talks to Tripp about his breakup with Charlotte, which is a more serious topic than anything they normally discuss. Now that Tripp knows Shane probably didn’t kill Mr. Larkin because he lacks a motive, he feels more comfortable trying to bond with him. They then break their long-standing rule and discuss the day Mr. Larkin died. Shane really did hear and see people arguing: Mr. Larkin and Nick Gallagher, fighting about the stolen money.
As soon as Brynn hears her Uncle Nick’s name, she runs off, apparently in search of him. Tripp notices someone familiar who shouldn’t be at the dance, near the entrance, where Ellie is. He starts heading in that direction.
Chapter 40 Summary: “Brynn”
Brynn confronts her Uncle Nick in the parking lot, explaining that Shane heard him arguing with Mr. Larkin about the stolen money just before Mr. Larkin’s dead body was found. Uncle Nick explains: An anonymous person had written a letter saying that Mr. Larkin stole the money from school. The letter was meant for Mr. Griswell, but was accidentally placed in Nick’s mailbox. He read the letter and told Mr. Larkin about it, but Mr. Larkin got angry, so Nick left. However, he claims he didn’t kill Mr. Larkin. Tripp rushes up to Nick’s car and, in a panic, tells them that they all need to find Ellie who has been taken by the man from the pawn shop, Dexter.
Chapter 41 Summary: “Tripp”
At Brynn and Tripp’s urgent tone, Nick begins to drive while he tries to figure out what is happening. They eventually see Dexter’s car and follow it with greater and greater speed. Tripp calls 9-1-1 while they’re driving, but the operator asks him to pull over before talking more. The kids tell Nick not to pull over, but Nick is scared because the roads are so dark. Suddenly, Nick crashes into a tree, which stops the car. While Tripp and Brynn seem okay, Nick groans from a slumped position and is injured.
Chapter 42 Summary: “Tripp”
Dexter Robbins emerges, holding a gun. He explains that he had a cop friend of his run Brynn’s license plate after he saw her at his pawn shop with Billy’s medallion. He looked up the school and found out there was a dance that night. Dexter is now here looking for Lila and Mikey, who he assumes go to the same school as Brynn, where Billy taught. Dexter threatens to kill Ellie if Brynn doesn’t take him to Mikey. Nick, comes to, reverses the car out of the tree, and then runs Dexter over, killing him.
Chapter 43 Summary: “Tripp”
A while later, Tripp visits Brynn at her house. Nick is still in the hospital recovering. Brynn, Tripp, and Ellie were all unharmed, but Brynn is traumatized and feels guilty, blaming herself for all of Dexter’s behavior. She thinks if she didn’t visit his pawn shop, no one would have been in danger. Tripp comforts her.
Motive, along with multiple other media outlets, are now covering Mr. Larkin’s murder with renewed interest. Tripp and Shane have told the police the truth that they were not together the whole time in the woods, and that Shane heard an argument. Nick has told the police about his part in the whole story as well.
Chapter 44 Summary: “Brynn”
Carly asks Brynn to return to work at Motive, but Brynn declines. Tripp says she should go back.
Tripp and Brynn go to Valerie’s house to investigate Lisa Marie’s room. Lisa Marie and Valerie are currently at a bar since Lisa Marie plans on leaving tomorrow. Valerie gave Tripp a key and permission to look through Lisa’s belongings to check if something is there. Unfortunately, he finds what he was looking for—Mr. Solomon’s tackle box, which he used to keep his cash in, and which was missing from his house when the police found him dead. Tripp then concludes that his mother must have robbed Mr. Solomon, and possibly killed him as well. Tripp thinks that if Lisa Marie can kill Mr. Solomon to steal his money, she could be capable of killing Mr. Larkin to cover up how she stole money from the school, too. Tripp then calls Officer Patz to tell him that Lisa Marie has Mr. Solomon’s stolen tackle box.
Epilogue Summary: “Brynn”
Uncle Nick isn’t being charged for anything in regard to Dexter’s death. He’s also not being considered a suspect for Mr. Larkin’s murder.
Brynn meets with Charlotte to explain her latest theory about Mr. Larkin’s death. Brynn comments that when Charlotte overheard her speaking with Mason at the winter dance, she emphasized Mason, rather than brother, when she said “Mason is Mr. Larkin’s brother?” (351-52). Charlotte doesn’t see what that is significant and Brynn offers her theory about how Charlotte already knew that Mr. Larkin had a brother, and mistakenly thought Shane was his brother. Brynn notes that Charlotte always followed Shane around and probably overheard Mr. Larkin. Brynn believes that Charlotte feared for Shane’s life if Mr. Larkin were to tell Dexter his and his mother’s whereabouts. Even though she was mistaken, Charlotte now had a motive for killing Mr. Larkin back then. Charlotte says that Brynn is making things up, but Brynn reflects on the little bit of evidence that she does have for Charlotte’s guilt—the matching handwriting between the anonymous note sent to Uncle Nick and Charlotte’s cover page for the girls’ eighth-grade leaf project.
After another request from Carly, Brynn signs up to work at Motive again after all.
Chapter 37-Epilogue Analysis
The novel’s conclusion does not offer a completely solid solution to the mystery of Mr. Larkin’s death. Although Brynn provides the reader with a believable case against Charlotte, the possibility remains that Mr. Larkin’s murder remains unknown. In this way, the novel sets the reader up for a possible sequel. Specifically, Uncle Nick’s alibi has yet to be verified, and given that Lisa Marie likely killed Mr. Solomon, she also remains a viable suspect. Ultimately, the novel has created many interesting character arcs that have yet to come to a satisfying conclusion, leading the reader to want to learn more.
By the end, Brynn seems confident in Charlotte’s guilt, even if the reader is not. This difference between what the character and the reader know brings up again the issue with The Ethics of True-Crime Media. While the reader may still be considering the truth, Brynn seems to have decided, despite the weak evidence. In this way, Brynn illustrates the dangers of being too close to an investigation and how that can hamper the pursuit of truth. Brynn even comments that she doesn’t want to believe in Lisa Marie’s guilt because that would be too hard on Tripp.
Even if Charlotte is the real murderer, as Brynn suspects, this is left unproven at the end of the novel in any sort of official sense. Brynn hasn’t brought it to the police, and the last sentence of the book involves her re-joining her old internship, apparently planning to continue the investigation. Even if a reader chooses to believe that Charlotte is the killer, the fact that no one other than Brynn knows leaves the ending open. Will Brynn even bring this theory up with the police? The book leaves this question unanswered and so Mr. Larkin has still yet to receive justice.
Other aspects of the novel are also left unexplained, strengthening the sense that the story goes on beyond the final page. For example, it’s unresolved if and where Tripp and Brynn will each go off to college, and whether their romantic relationship will be able to continue under these circumstances. Tripp also never resolves the truth with his father.
The last section of the novel rounds out the book’s main themes and illustrates The Importance of Teamwork and Honesty, as well as the burden of keeping secrets. Although secrecy may still be at large, several characters provided the police with information and physical evidence that they didn’t have before, which does provide the characters—and the reader—with some curiosity satisfied. Further, the need for multiple characters to provide a fuller picture of what happened shows that the truth might not be something that only one person has.
Throughout the text, Brynn goes back and forth on whether it’s a good idea to pursue true-crime journalism and Mr. Larkin’s specific case, an internal debate that reflects the ambivalent position true-crime media occupies in society. The reader follows Brynn’s back-and-forth and is encouraged to ask what good true-crime media does. Brynn’s decision at the end of the novel to go back to her internship suggests that while true-crime media may create many problems and it may raise difficult questions, ultimately the truth is worth pursuing. With a possible sequel, Brynn may pursue the truth with greater awareness of her methods.
As the protagonist of the novel, Brynn narrates both the opening chapter and the epilogue, which emphasizes her relative importance over Tripp. Although he is also a narrator and a major character, Brynn is ultimately the character with whom the reader is meant to identify with most strongly, even if the presence of another narrator leaves the reader uncertain about Brynn’s reliability.
In this final section, there are no more bits narrated by Tripp’s eighth-grade self, which suggests that he has come to a healed (or somewhat healed) state of mind after sharing his whole truth with someone. Now, Tripp is free to narrate everything of relevance as his current, nearly adult self. This represents the integration that comes with processing trauma so that peoples’ selves don’t have to be fractured anymore. This again illustrates The Burden of Keeping Secrets as well as The Importance of Teamwork and Honesty—telling the truth requires someone to tell the truth to.
Related Titles
By Karen M. McManus
