The Persistence of the Past Theme in Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson

The Past as an Unfinished Crime

In Nine Liars, Maureen Johnson builds a mystery that refuses to stay in its own era. The novel’s central case—a double murder at a remote English estate in 1995—does not simply sit in the past; it reaches forward, shaping the lives of the survivors, the investigators, and even the teenagers who stumble into it decades later. The thematic claim at the heart of the book is that historical violence is never truly over. Unresolved crimes leave cracks in the present, and those who inherit them—whether through memory, guilt, or curiosity—must either confront the past or be haunted by it. Stevie Bell, a true-crime obsessive, becomes the vehicle for this confrontation, but the novel also shows that the past is not a clean, solvable puzzle. It is layered, contested, and sometimes deliberately buried, and the act of digging it up changes the digger as much as the buried truth.

The Itch for a Real Murder

The novel opens with Stevie Bell at Ellingham Academy, restless and avoidant. She is a senior who has not started her college applications, and her friends Janelle and Vi are tracking their futures on a spreadsheet. Stevie receives a steady stream of messages from strangers describing suspicious things they have seen—an industrial dryer, a community garden—but she dismisses them as “weird crap.” Nate, her friend, calls her out: “You’ve been genuinely spaced,” and suggests she investigate one of these cases. Stevie’s response is telling: she wants “a real murder,” not a neighbor with a dryer and a shovel.

This restlessness is not just teenage ennui. Stevie has already solved two cold cases—one at Ellingham from 1936, and one from the 1970s in Massachusetts. She is, in a sense, a professional inheritor of other people’s pasts. The novel makes clear that her attraction to old crimes is not merely intellectual; it is a way of giving shape to her own uncertain future. When David calls from London and proposes a trip, Stevie jumps at it, and the group pitches a study-abroad plan to Ellingham. The trip is framed as educational, but for Stevie it is a chance to find the kind of case that will scratch her itch. The past, she believes, is something she can solve—and solving it will give her a sense of purpose that college applications cannot.

London’s Layered Violence

Once in London, Stevie is surrounded by history that is literally built on death. On a walking tour of the Old City, she reflects on how the city “refused to stop” and how the dead are stacked under the streets in “an archaeological seven-layer dip.” The Tower of London, with its beheadings and torture devices, becomes a kind of primer for the murder she will soon investigate. She notes that “axe murder is serious business” and that a “little bit of fakery” is all it takes to kill someone—a direct echo of the story of Anne Boleyn, who had to turn her head to make the executioner’s job easier.

This historical framing is not incidental. It primes Stevie to think about the 1995 case in a specific way. When she later hears Angela’s story about the nine friends who went to Merryweather, she is already thinking in terms of axes, sheds, and the theatricality of violence. The Jack the Ripper tour, which David arranges, reinforces the idea that murder is both a spectacle and a social crime. Stevie’s blunt comment—“Murderers are assholes”—cuts through the tour guide’s romanticism, but it also shows that she understands the past as a series of individual choices, not just a backdrop. The past is not abstract; it is made of people who did terrible things.

Excavating the Woodshed

The investigation itself is an act of excavation. The murder site—a woodshed on the Merryweather estate—is locked, then unlocked, and the floor above it is supposedly rotted away. Stevie and David climb into the crawl space and find a window that was closed in a photo taken the night of the murder but open in a police photo taken the next day. There is no rope pull, and the space is supposedly inaccessible, yet someone was there. Stevie realizes that Sebastian, the estate’s owner, may have lied about the rotted floor. The past is not just buried; it is actively hidden.

The symbols of the novel reinforce this. The woodshed itself is a physical container of violence, but it is also a place where the past leaks through—the window, the crawl space, the missing rope. The button, which Stevie initially believes is a clue, turns out to be a red herring: “There is no button,” she realizes, and that absence becomes the key. The fire safe under the stairs, mentioned in Stevie’s memory of Angela’s house, holds money and documents, but it also represents the way people try to secure their secrets. The lock on the woodshed door is broken, but the real lock is the silence of the survivors.

Stevie’s method is to dig through layers—photographs, police reports, trash. In one scene, she pulls a curry-stained receipt out of the garbage and realizes it is the proof she needs. The past is not only in archives; it is in the mundane debris of daily life. The novel suggests that unresolved crimes leave traces everywhere, and that the present is always contaminated by them.

The Personal Past

The theme of persistence is not limited to the 1995 case. Stevie’s own past—her relationship with David—becomes another unresolved crime. David, who has been distant and evasive, is revealed to have been kissing someone else. Izzy, who had a brief relationship with David, tells Stevie that David never had feelings for her, that he talks about Stevie constantly, and that he broke up with her out of panic. But Stevie sees David with her own eyes, and the betrayal is a kind of violence that echoes the novel’s larger concern with trust and deception.

In the aftermath, Stevie is shattered. She sits in a Heathrow bathroom, unable to board her flight home, because a voice in her head insists, “You saw it. You saw it.” She realizes she has seen something in Angela’s house that will solve the case, and she chooses to stay behind, telling her friends, “I have to finish this.” This decision is a direct consequence of the past’s grip. Stevie cannot leave the case unresolved, just as she cannot leave her own heartbreak unresolved. The past, both historical and personal, demands completion.

Complexity: The Past Is Not a Single Story

The novel complicates the idea that the past is a fixed, knowable thing. The survivors of the 1995 murder—Sooz, Peter, Yash, Julian, Sebastian—each have their own version of events. Their memories are selective, self-serving, and sometimes deliberately false. Sebastian lies about the rotted floor. The button is a false clue. The window was opened by someone, but the reason is unclear. The past is not a clean narrative; it is a tangle of motives, accidents, and cover-ups.

Moreover, the past is not always a burden. For Stevie, it is also a calling. She is drawn to cold cases because they give her a sense of purpose and identity. The novel suggests that the persistence of the past is not inherently negative—it can be a source of meaning, a way to connect with others, and a path to justice. But it also warns that the past can consume those who chase it. Stevie’s decision to stay behind at Heathrow is both heroic and self-destructive; she is choosing the case over her own future, over her friends, over her own well-being. The past is a double-edged sword.

Conclusion

In Nine Liars, the past is not a closed chapter. It is a living force that shapes the present, demanding to be acknowledged and resolved. Stevie Bell, a detective who specializes in old crimes, becomes the conduit for this reckoning, but the novel shows that the past is not something one can simply solve and move on from. It is layered, contested, and often deliberately hidden. The woodshed, the button, the fire safe, and the lock all point to the ways in which violence leaves traces that persist. And Stevie’s own personal past—her relationship with David—mirrors the larger theme, reminding us that unresolved emotions can be as haunting as unresolved crimes. The novel ultimately suggests that the past is not something we can escape; it is something we must carry, examine, and, if we are brave enough, confront.

Study Questions

1. How does Stevie’s initial restlessness at Ellingham set up the theme of the persistence of the past?

Stevie is a senior who has not started college applications, and she is “itchy” for a real murder. Her history of solving cold cases—the 1936 Ellingham case and a 1970s Massachusetts case—shows that she is already drawn to unresolved crimes. The novel suggests that the past is not something she can leave behind; it keeps calling her, and she needs to answer.

1. What role do the London tours (the Tower of London and the Jack the Ripper walk) play in shaping Stevie’s understanding of the 1995 murder?

The tours expose Stevie to historical violence—beheadings, axe murders, and the commodification of crime. She reflects on how “a little bit of fakery” can enable a killing, and she sees that murder is both a spectacle and a social crime. This primes her to think about the woodshed murder in terms of theatricality and deception.

1. How do the symbols of the woodshed, the button, and the fire safe contribute to the theme?

The woodshed is a physical container of violence, but it also has hidden spaces—the crawl space, the window—that suggest the past is not fully sealed. The button is a false clue, showing that the past can mislead. The fire safe represents the way people try to secure their secrets, but it also holds the truth that Stevie needs. Together, these symbols show that the past is both buried and accessible, and that uncovering it requires digging through layers.

1. In what ways does the novel complicate the idea that the past can be fully resolved?

The survivors have conflicting memories, and some deliberately lie (Sebastian about the rotted floor). The button is a red herring, and the window’s opening is unexplained. The past is not a clean narrative; it is a tangle of motives and cover-ups. Even after Stevie solves the case, her own personal past—David’s betrayal—remains unresolved, suggesting that some pasts cannot be neatly closed.

1. How does Stevie’s decision to stay behind at Heathrow reflect the theme’s complexity?

Stevie chooses to miss her flight because she believes she has seen something that will solve the case. This decision shows that the past has a powerful grip on her—it is both a calling and a burden. She is willing to sacrifice her own future to finish the investigation, which suggests that the past can be both a source of purpose and a trap. The novel leaves open whether this choice is heroic or self-destructive, highlighting the theme’s ambiguity.