Nothing More Dangerous (Max Rupert and Joe Talbert)

In a small Southern town where loyalty to family and community carries deep weight, defying unspoken rules can have deadly consequences. High school freshman Boady Sanden has spent fifteen years in the Ozark hills with his widowed mother and dreams of escaping Jessup, Missouri for a life in the city. At St. Ignatius High School, he struggles to find his place, feeling both pushed around and invisible. When Thomas Elgin and his family—a Black family—move across the road, Boady's perspective begins to shift. Getting to know the Elgins forces him to reconsider his understanding of the world around him, particularly the unspoken divisions between "us" and "them" that carry historical weight. As secrets begin to surface—about his mother's grief, a neighbor's mysterious past, and his boss's hidden struggles—Boady discovers that the disappearance of Lida Poe, an African-American woman who worked at the local plastics factory, is connected to the deepest layers of his community. Lida vanished along with a hundred thousand dollars of company money. As the mystery unfolds, Boady confronts the stark lines of race and class that both bind and divide his small town, and he must choose where he stands.