LOVE COOLS

Blain moves modestly but effectively out of the adolescent milieu of the Montpelier School for Boys (Passion Play, 1990) and across the Blue Ridge to Rockbridge, Virginia, where the Stone Mountain Arts School's amateur theatricals will bring together Richard Blackburn, a prankster schoolboy dismissed from Montpelier for plagiarism; Oscar Davidson, his teacher and accuser, and widower of the late Shakespearean scholar Sarah Davidson, killed a month before in a suspicious fire; Chris Nivens, her former graduate student and tenant; Sarah's sister and editor Anne Lindsey; and a million other equally suspicious characters. Endless subplots--all involving bogus versions of short manuscripts whose authorship is in heavy-breathing doubt--lead to more skulduggery surrounding the dysfunctional Blackburn family's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. If you can believe academics and literary hacks would really sweat so hard for so little gain, you'll enjoy this improbably convoluted baffler.