THE FACULTY CLUB

In this debut novel, a small-town Texas kid starting out at a high-powered Ivy League law school is seduced and then threatened by members of a secret underground society.

Jeremy Davis thinks he has it made: Mere days after starting school, a high-ranking professor asks him to be his research assistant; a beautiful and brilliant classmate expresses interest in him; and he is courted by an exclusive club that guarantees considerable wealth for its members. At first, he'll do anything to become one of three inductees, but he soon discovers that the club, with its special fondness for skulls, weaponry and hidden tunnels, has evil designs. With the help of a computer geek, a voodoo expert and a philosophy student, Jeremy desperately tries to decode its dark mysteries—and, having cruelly treated a female witness in a mock trial to raise his profile, reclaim his compromised soul. Told in unstylish first person (“I felt fear drip down my back”), the story has neither credibility nor suspense. Tobey, a graduate of Harvard and Yale Law Schools, provides little in the way of juicy insider's knowledge. In the end, having seen the error of his ways, Jeremy redeems himself with the woman he mistreated, recommits himself to law school and envisions life as an attorney back in Texas.

A novel as callow as its protagonist.