Friendships between girls in high school are, in a word, charged. At that age, girls are on the cusp of everything — and they're navigating it all alongside one another. Deep intimacy is often laced with a competitive edge, a jealous streak, a darkness. But if you think your high school friendships were a tad bit twisted, wait until you read about Kit Owens and Diane Fleming, the central characters of Megan Abbott's propulsive new crime thriller, Give Me Your Hand, out July 17. Kit's relationship with Diane pushes her to take her scientific ambitions seriously for the first time in her life. Yet a secret Diane shares their senior year pushes the women apart for a decade, until an adult Diane shows up to steal the promotion that Kit has worked so hard for. On this episode of Word to the Wise, Leah Carroll sits down with Abbott to discuss the art of the perfect crime novel (and trust us, this one is perfect). For an extra treat, at the end of the show, Diana Cenat and I discuss the books we're reading this summer.