STALKING DEATH

Educational consultant Thea Kozak (Liberty or Death, 2003, etc.) returns to confront a series of escalating crises at an elite New Hampshire school.

When 6’3” basketball player Shondra Jones—whose brother Jamison, a star athlete, lobbied strongly for her admission to St. Matthews—accuses a fellow student of stalking her, the administration swings into action. St. Matthews headmaster Todd Chambers ridicules Shondra’s claim; runs a dead-end investigation designed to avoid any evidence that supports her story of anonymous phone calls and obscene photographs; and ignores the evidence his minions actually turn up (like a pair of creepy photos). How come? Because the alleged stalker is Alasdair MacGregor, grandson of princely donor Gregor MacGregor, a man no one at St. Matthews can afford to offend. Chambers demands that Thea, a specialist in educational crisis management, drop whatever she’s doing and run out to his school so that he can fire her the following day, minutes before four campus cops pull Jamison off Alasdair, because she’s made it clear that she’s not following the party line. End of story, thinks Thea, until another phone call a week later begs her to return now that Jamison’s been found standing over Alasdair’s smoldering corpse.

The solution to the whodunit is pretty obvious. But there’s no denying the intense pleasure of watching Thea mix it up with the deliciously craven guardians of St. Matthews.