The Twisted Thread

April 4, 2011
At the start of Bacon's multifaceted first novel, untidy Madeline Christopher, an "intern" English teacher at Armitage Academy, an elite New England boarding school, returns from her morning jog to learn that a student of hers, Claire Harkness, has been killed in her dorm room. Claire, who had concealed a pregnancy, had recently given birth, though there's no sign of the child. Madeline, who uncovers a malevolent clique that turns against her, shares her information with handsome detective Matt Corelli, who has his own past with the school. While suspicion swirls around Claire's boyfriend, Scotty Johnston, tension mounts between working-class staff, students, and town residents. Dropped rather than twisted plot threads and a lack of actual detection may disappoint whodunit purists, but appealing characters and the intelligent depiction of an insular community hold attention throughout. Bacon's short story collection, A Private State, won the PEN/Hemingway Award for First Fiction in 1998.

May 1, 2011

Murder is added to the curriculum at a posh boarding school.

Claire was beautiful, smart and rich. Everybody at Armitage Academy knew that. But no one admitted to knowing she was pregnant until she lay dead on her dorm-room floor, her head bashed in and her body revealing that she had recently given birth. Why did she die, and where is her infant? These questions become the problems of local cops Vernon Cates and Matt Corelli, who are also saddled with the conflicts between patrician students and working-class townies. Matt, who attended Armitage until a trumped-up charge of plagiarism led to his dismissal, is attracted to Madeline Christopher, a new teacher who's guilt-stricken for not having noticed Claire's pregnancy or known about an old-school tradition of rather mean-spirited hazing, led most recently by Claire and a cadre of her snobbish friends until Claire did a turnabout and tried to democratize the group. Claire remained close-mouthed, however, about the father of her child, although most observers suspect her boyfriend Scotty. The scandal threatens the academy's reputation and fund-raising efforts among well-heeled parents who insist on removing their children or blanket them with lawyers. Claire's journal, which finally provides the reason for her death, reveals her determination to cause the utmost embarrassment to the school and its staff.

A long-winded tome whose creator (Split Estate, 2008, etc.) excels only in proving that uninteresting characters make uninteresting reading.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 15, 2011
Armitage Academy is thrown into complete chaos when beautiful Claire Harkness is found dead in her dorm room. She was always perfectly poised and perfectly dressed, someone who seemed immune to the vagaries of daily life. School personnel and the local police, though sometimes working at cross purposes, are determined to find her killer. Madeline Christopher, an intern in the English Department, uses her outsider status to ferret out important information about the ruling school clique called the Reign of Terror. Detective Matt Correlli, who attended Armitage, knows just how the privileged operate, and art teacher Fred Naylor, whose grandfather was headmaster, finds that the school has always used its prestige to cover up its sordid secrets. Bacon skillfully deploys a suspenseful plot while offering an in-depth profile of the hidebound traditions of an elite institution. In addition, her winning cast, especially Madeline, whose unruly hair and wrinkled clothing make her something of an anomaly within the schools pristine environs, provides the perfect entr'e into the nefarious doings of the rich and the powerful.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)