Fiction, Mystery & Crime, Fiction Subjects

The Chatham School Affair

Name: The Chatham School Affair
Author: Thomas H. Cook
ISBN: 9780553571936

by Thomas H. Cook

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Overview

Attorney Henry Griswald has a secret: the truth behind the tragic events the world knew as the Chatham School Affair, the controversial tragedy that destroyed five lives, shattered a quiet community, and forever scarred the young boy. Layer by layer, in The Chatham School Affair, Cook paints a stunning portrait of a woman, a school, and a town in which passionate violence seems impossible...and inevitable. "Thomas Cook's night visions, seen through a lens darkly, are haunting," raved the New York Times Book Review, and The Chatham School Affair will cement this superb writer's position as one of crime fiction's most prodigious talents, a master of the unexpected ending.

Synopsis

Publishers Weekly

PW gave a starred review to this "literate, compelling novel" about passion and tragedy in 1920s Cape Cod. (Sept.)

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

PW gave a starred review to this "literate, compelling novel" about passion and tragedy in 1920s Cape Cod. (Sept.)

Library Journal

The destruction that passion can wreak is well demonstrated in this austere new novel by the author of Breakheart Hill (LJ 7/95). From the August day in 1926 that Elizabeth Channing comes to teach art at a private school outside Boston, Henry Griswald, son of the headmaster, finds himself a willing accomplice in the love affair between Channing and Leland Reed, a World War I veteran and fellow teacher. Now a bachelor in his seventies, Griswald looks back over a year in his adolescence that culminated in violent death and the destruction of innocent lives, a year that taught him the dangers of strong emotions. Although none of the characters except Henry is well developedit's particularly difficult to understand what attraction the lovers have for each anotherCook effectively builds the tension through the use of foreshadowing. This well-written, genre-stretching mystery starts slowly and delivers a powerful ending. Appropriate for public libraries of all sizes.Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle