Synopses & Reviews
Mark DeAvecca is a brilliant fifteen-year-old in his first year at the exclusive private academy, Windsor School. Mark, the son of noted commentator Liz Tolliver, grew up in very different circumstances and could not fit in less well. With its hundred-year-old history, Windsor is rife with tradition, nasty rumors, petty jealousies and long buried resentments. The most savage of those unpleasant undercurrents swirl around the headmaster's wife - currently rumored, with good reason, to be having an affair with Mark's roommate, a street-tough scholarship student. Mark, however, has his own problems - he feels himself slowly losing his grip on reality and the staff widely believes him to be just another prep school burnout headed for an unpleasant end. So when Mark returns from a late-winter ramble about the campus to find his roommate dead, hanging from the ceiling of their room, he's reached the end of his own metaphorical rope.
Even though he's no longer sure about the line between fantasy and reality, Mark is fairly certain that something is going on at the school and there's more to the death than the official declaration of suicide. With nowhere else to turn, Mark calls retired FBI agent Gregor Demarkian to ask for help. Sensing the crisis in Mark's dulled voice, Demarkian arrives to find Mark in dire physical and mental state, and a school only too eager to sweep his roommate's death under the rug. In what quickly becomes one of the most complex and challenging cases in his career, Demarkian must untangle truth from fiction, fantasy from reality, before another life is lost.
Review
"Campus politics and intrigue intermingle with sex, suicide and possibly murder in Haddam's searing 20th Gregor Demarkian mystery...[A] compelling portrait of a closed society rife with sleeze under its veneer of respectibility and prestige." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Publishers Weekly
Review
"Gregor, like the series itself, shows no signs of stopping."--
Booklist
"Sharp, intelligent, and inventive...the kind of mysteries a Dorothy L. Sayers or a Josephine Tey might have been proud to come up with in the genre's so-called Golden Age...like a good cabinet maker, Haddam knows exactly how to cut and polish her material into art."--Chicago Tribune
"Fans of Jane Haddam's Gregor Demarkian mystery stories will be pleased that the celebrated FBI agent is back to crack another case...intelligently written and well-paced...Haddam handles multiple murders and complex story lines in a masterful way that makes this tale a worthwhile read."--Indianapolis Star
Synopsis
At the Windsor School, an exclusive prep school in Connecticut, a student is found hanged in the cellar after rumors of an affair with the headmaster's wife.
Synopsis
Critical Praise for Jane Haddam's Gregor Demarkian novels
"Haddam plays the mystery game like a master!" - Chicago Tribune on A Great Day for the Deadly
"An engrossingly complex mystery that should win further acclaim for its talented author." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) on True Believers
"Devotees of strongly written, intelligent mysteries will be pleased that Haddam remains hard at work." - Booklist on Conspiracy Theory
"Dazzlingly ingenious, Jane Haddam's novels provide style, humor and philosophy blended with gore galore - they're real spellbinders, sparklingly written and smashingly plotted." - The Drood Review on Festival of Deaths
"Fresh...suspects and victim who are as fascinating and entertaining as the recurring cast...Riveting!" - January Magazine on Somebody Else's Music
"Sophisticated style, excellent delivery, and riveting plot." - Library Journal on Skeleton Key
Synopsis
In the tradition of P.D. James, Jane Haddam's novels combine compelling story lines with a keen-eyed, complex sense of the character's psychology and sharp, evocative sense of place...
THE HEADMASTER'S WIFE
Windsor Academy ranks as one of the best New England prep schools money can buy. From its Gothic arches to its ethnic diversity, it looks picture perfect...as long as nobody notices that the headmaster's wife has a student lover and drugs are as available as candy. And when freshman Mark DeAvecca looks out a faux medieval window and sees a body across the campus, he wonders if he's hallucinating--especially when no corpse is found. Since everyone thinks that Mark is a druggie, they all ignore him--until he returns to his dorm room to discover his roommate dead, hanged by the neck from the ceiling.
Desperate, Mark calls his mother's friend Gregor Demarkian, former FBI agent and the one person Mark knows will listen. Demarkian is world-weary and ready to retire from his investigative career, yet he can't turn down a plea from a scared kid. And it doesn't take long before Gregor knows something is very wrong at Windsor Academy...something like manipulation, dirty tricks, and murder.
"Compelling...campus politics and intrigue intermingle with sex, suicide and possibly murder in Haddam's searing 20th Gregor Demarkian mystery."
--Publishers Weekly starred review
"Intelligently written...masterful."
--Indianapolis Star
Synopsis
Windsor Academy ranks as one of the best New England prep schools money can buy. From its Gothic arches to its ethnic diversity, it looks picture perfect...as long as nobody notices that the headmaster's wife has a student lover and drugs are as available as candy. And when freshman Mark DeAvecca looks out a faux medieval window and sees a body across the campus, he wonders if he's hallucinating--especially when no corpse is found. Since everyone thinks that Mark is a druggie, they all ignore him--until he returns to his dorm room to discover his roommate dead, hanged by the neck from the ceiling.
Desperate, Mark calls his mother's friend Gregor Demarkian, former FBI agent and the one person Mark knows will listen. Demarkian is world-weary and ready to retire from his investigative career, yet he can't turn down a plea from a scared kid. And it doesn't take long before Gregor knows something is very wrong at Windsor Academy...something like manipulation, dirty tricks, and murder.
About the Author
JANE HADDAM is the author of many previous novels, most featuring Gregor Demarkian, as well as numerous articles and stories published widely. Her novels have been finalists for both the Edgar and Anthony Awards. She lives with her family in Litchfield Country, Connecticut.