The Crazy School

October 15, 2007
At the start of Edgar-finalist Read’s gutsy second Madeline Dare novel (after 2006’s A Field of Darkness
), Dare, a 26-year-old former debutante, takes a job in the fall of 1989 as a history teacher at Santangelo Academy, an unorthodox “therapeutic boarding school” in western Massachusetts dominated by its authoritarian cape-wearing headmaster, David Santangelo. When a student, Mooney LeChance, reveals that his girlfriend, Fay Perry, is pregnant, Dare keeps Mooney’s secret while the couple is confined to “the Farm,” a punishment dorm in the woods. The book’s first half focuses on character—the woefully misguided souls who teach at Santangelo, the students in all their dysfunctional glory—but the action picks up when Mooney and Fay die from drinking poisoned punch after a birthday party at the Farm, and Dare is arrested for her role in preparing the fatal beverage. While some characters, like the social-climbing parents who drop in between vacations, verge on stereotype, Read graphically depicts the depressing underside of a supposedly elite private school.

Starred review from October 15, 2007
Read's mystery debut, "A Field of Darkness", was well received by reviewers and nominated for an Edgar Award; only a year later, she has an equally compelling new offering. This time Madeline Dare and husband Dean have relocated from Syracuse, NY, to the Berkshires as Madeline has accepted a teaching position at the Santangelo Academy, an alternative school for troubled teenagers. When the book opens, she is slowly adjusting to the quirky rules and therapy regimens required of students and teachers alike. An atmosphere of distrust is pervasive, cultivated by policies that encourage teachers to snitch on one another for such minor transgressions as smoking cigarettes or drinking coffee. Many of the students are prone to violence, and Read does a good job of projecting an air of unease, even before two of the students are murdered and Madeline's own life is threatened. Read's novel is fast-paced; once the action starts, don't even think about putting it down. The motives behind the murders are complex, and the ultimate heroes and bad guys are a total surprise. Strongly recommended for all public libraries.Caroline Mann, Univ. of Portland Lib., OR

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2007
Theres madness in western Massachusetts in Reads smart second offering starring witheringly witty ex-debutante Madeline Dare. This time around, Madeline is up to her cocked eyebrow in trouble when she takes a teaching job at cultish Santangelo Academy, a boarding school for troubled teens. At Santangelo, humiliation and harsh discipline await studentsand teacherswho act out or misbehave. Thats bad news for Madeline, whose top-two vices, coffee and cigarettes, rate high on the schools copious list of taboos. Life at Santangelo goes from unsettling to sinister after a student and his pregnant girlfriend are found dead under mysterious circumstances, and on the same night, Madeline is poisoned within an inch of her life. Soon after, a well-intentioned student comes to Madeline with news of a staff member who had both motive and means. Edgar-nominee Read (A Field of Darkness, 2006) has rendered another swiftly plotted mystery peppered with wonderful one-liners. Madeline may be the only amateur sleuth who would describe the difficulties of solving a murderas being as exhausting as trying to parse that old riddle about getting the goat and the wolf and the head of cabbage safely across some river in your too-small rowboat, only worse this time, because Kafka kept lighting the oars on fire and laughing his ass off. This series belongs on the must-read list of anyone who enjoys mystery mixed with comedy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)