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by Jane Haddam
 Campus politics and intrigue intermingle with sex, suicide and possibly murder in Haddam's searing 20th Gregor Demarkian mystery, set at "progressive" Windsor Academy, a suburban Boston boarding school. Alice Makepeace, the ineffectual headmaster's strong-willed wife, has been having affairs with students for years until her most recent conquest, 16-year-old Michael Feyre, is found hanging in his dorm room by his well-connected roommate, Mark DeAvecca. Drugs abound, dress codes are passé and students call teachers by their first names at the troubled school, which is engulfed in media chaos after Mark nearly dies from arsenic poisoning and a caffeine overdose. Familiar character types on the faculty, including hardcore feminists, closet gays and liberal preppies, hide in their dormitory apartments while Mark's mother, CNN "talking head" Liz Toliver, leads an exposé of Windsor's endemic corruption and hypocrisy. Ex-FBI man Demarkian conducts a low-key investigation even while distracted by problems in his romantic life back in Philadelphia. He develops an appealingly close, trusting relationship with Mark that transcends the normal problems of adolescence in this compelling portrait of a closed society rife with sleaze under its veneer of respectability and prestige. CONSPIRACY THEORY The 19th Gregor Demarkian mystery-since 1990-finds the retired head of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit investigating the bombing of a church in his Philadelphia neighborhood. Meanwhile, a conspiracy is afoot, at least according to a group of conspiracy theorists who believe that an upcoming social event is actually a gathering of the Illuminati, the shadowy organization that some people believe is secretly running the world. Without meaning to, Demarkian winds up smack in the middle of these goings-on, and, once again, he must rely on his wits and his instincts to emerge unscathed. Haddam, a prolific writer (before the Demarkian novels, she wrote under an assortment of pseudonyms), likes to tackle big themes in this series, and devotees of strongly written, intelligent mysteries drawn from the headlines will be pleased to find that she remains hard at work. |
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the Third Annual Conference of American Writers of Romance where author Patience McKenna finds herself caught in an intrigue that would horrify her most devoted readers. Complete with a crime-solving cat, this Edgar-nominated whodunit is a clever behind-the-scenes look at the romance business -- authors, agents, editors, publishers, and fans. |
 By Jane Haddam Elizabeth Toliver, now an acclaimed author with a rock star lover, was a too-smart fashion-impaired teen who was the target of abuse from a circle of popular high school girls. The abuse escalated until one summer night when she was nailed inside an outhouse with over twenty snakes within, and while she beat herself into a coma trying to escape, a local teenage boy was murdered just outside. Still haunted by nightmares of that night, Toliver returns to her hometown for the first time in almost thirty years, triggering a deadly chain of events. |
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This is the 15th mystery featuring FBI agent-turned
-sleuth Gregor Demarkian, and I am enjoyed it!!!
Bennis Hannaford, Gregor's lover, is visiting an
acquaintance and discovers the murdered body of a
young debutante the garage. She drags Gregor out of
his comfortable Philadelphia apartment to Litchfield
County, Connecticut, to aid in the investigation.
Matters are further complicated when yet another body
is found in the same garage!
Ms. Haddam lives in Litchfield County and has created a
very realistic tale that's caught my attention from the
first page. There is a large cast of characters but the
murderer is not obvious. There are several things in this
book that I have found particularly interesting...the
relationship of Bennis and Gregor, her "illness"..and the
interaction of some of the cast. A Roman Catholic parish, still suffering from the aftereffects of a pedophilia scandal that rocked the archdiocese; an Episcopalian church with a mostly gay male congregation; an independent, fundamentalist Baptist church and an atheist Edith Lawton all occupy the same block. Jane Haddam's superb plotting and characterizations allow this microcosmic creation to achieve credibility. The new Cardinal Archbishop of Philadelphia first consults Gregor Demarkian when a suicide inside St. Anselm's proves more complicated than first believed and threatens to become a new scandal for the beleaguered Catholic church. Then Demarkian is coopted by the police when another death, thought to have been natural, proves to have been murder. As tensions escalate, Demarkian must unravel the motives behind killings that threaten to tear apart the delicate balance. |
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