The Crazy School by Cornelia Read

From the Publisher

From the acclaimed author of A FIELD OF DARKNESS comes another compelling novel featuring the acerbic and memorable voice of ex-debutante Madeline Dare.

Madeline Dare has finally escaped rust-belt Syracuse, New York, for the lush BerkshireMountains in Massachusetts. After her husband's job offer falls through, Maddie signs on as a teacher at the SantangeloAcademy, a boarding school for disturbed teenagers. Behind the academy's ornate gates, she discovers a disturbing realm where students and teachers alike must submit to the founder's bizarre therapeutic regimen. From day one, Maddie feels uneasy about smooth-talking Dr. Santangelo but when she questions his methods, she's appalled to find that her fellow teachers would rather turn on each other than stand up for themselves, much less protect the students in their care. A chilling event confirms Maddie's worst suspicions, then hints at an even darker secret history, one that twines through the academy's very heart. Cut off from the outside world, Maddie must join forces with a small band of the school's most violently rebellious students-kids whose troubled grip on reality may well prove to be her only chance of salvation.

The New York Times - Marilyn Stasio

The perverse tones of Madeline Dare rake their fingernails across the mental blackboard in The Crazy School. And how nice it is to hear that rebel voice again…While hardly taxing, the whodunit plot is funny and twisted, and it gives Madeline plenty of opportunities to air her caustic views on the evolutionary decline of her social class.

Publishers Weekly

Ex-California rich girl Madeline Dare returns for a second mystery (after Field of Darkness), set in 1989 at a school for disturbed adolescents in the Berkshires, where the strictures and therapy requirements for the staff are only slightly less stringent than those for the students. After a pair of teenage lovers are poisoned, new teacher Madeline uncovers several dark (and fairly unsurprising) secrets about the school as she searches for the killer. The mystery's murderer and motives soon become obvious, as do the red herrings. It's the unflinching drama and sharply drawn characters that make this book, and both are ably realized by Hilary Huber, who is adept at both male and female voices and a variety of accents. She perfectly evokes Madeline with a mix of tart cynicism and warm compassion. Aside from the vaguely irritating musical strings inserted between chapters, this is fine and involving to listen to. Simultaneous release with the Grand Central hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 15, 2007). (Feb.)

Caroline Mann - Library Journal

Read's mystery debut, A Field of Darkness, was well received by reviewers and nominated for an Edgar Award; only a year later, she has an equally compelling new offering. This time Madeline Dare and husband Dean have relocated from Syracuse, NY, to the Berkshires as Madeline has accepted a teaching position at the Santangelo Academy, an alternative school for troubled teenagers. When the book opens, she is slowly adjusting to the quirky rules and therapy regimens required of students and teachers alike. An atmosphere of distrust is pervasive, cultivated by policies that encourage teachers to snitch on one another for such minor transgressions as smoking cigarettes or drinking coffee. Many of the students are prone to violence, and Read does a good job of projecting an air of unease, even before two of the students are murdered and Madeline's own life is threatened. Read's novel is fast-paced; once the action starts, don't even think about putting it down. The motives behind the murders are complex, and the ultimate heroes and bad guys are a total surprise. Strongly recommended for all public libraries.

Kirkus Reviews

Another bitterly amusing mystery from the author of A Field of Darkness (2006). The Santangelo Academy is a school of last resort, an expensive dumping ground for addicted, addled and dangerous teenagers. Madeline Dare is almost as desperate as her students when she starts teaching there: The job that lured her husband from Syracuse to the Berkshires disappears before he even begins work, and a position teaching history is the only employment Madeline can find. She's got other, more existential issues, too-ones that some readers will recall from Madeline's first appearance in Read's debut-and the draconian therapeutic regimen at Santangelo is only exacerbating her emotional unease. Having been raised amidst the baroque self-help culture of California in the '70s, Madeline is both familiar with and deeply skeptical of the school founder's unorthodox methods. Her cynicism turns to something deeper and more terrible, though, when she suspects that the supposed suicide of two students was actually murder. Her fear and outrage intensify when she becomes a suspect. Like the many caterers, quilters and cat-lovers who inhabit mystery fiction, Madeline has a knack for amateur sleuthing, but there's nothing cozy about this novel (the violence is occasionally spectacular, and there is liberal use of the F-word). And, like the oft-imperiled heroines of romantic suspense, Madeline has a gift for getting into trouble, but Read does not use danger as an impetus for crazy sex (Madeline is securely, sedately married, and when she and her husband go to bed together, it's for sleeping). Rather, Read borrows elements from different genres to craft a strange, compelling narrative, one that frequentlyapproaches-but never quite descends to-the excesses of melodrama. Madeline's deadpan voice, acid wit and psychological depth are the perfect counterpoint to the novel's positively Gothic plot. In her shadowed complexity and stubborn-but fragile-integrity, Madeline resembles many of the genre's most enduring protagonists. She's a great character, and her creator is a great storyteller. Caustic, gripping and distinctive-intelligent entertainment.

Product Details

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Read a Sample Chapter

The Crazy School

Grand Central Publishing

Chapter One

The other six kids went quiet, looking from him to me-teen-angst scratching and hair twirling and pencil chewing arrested for once.

He cracked his gum, noise reverberating off the jaundice-yellow cinder block.

It was an ugly room. Demoralizing. I didn't want to be in it, either, only you're not supposed to say that when you're the grown-up.

The trees outside were losing their last Robert Frost touches of burnished brass and copper-sorry leaves ready to drop from maples and elms and whatever the hell else kind of East Coast trees I still didn't know the names of, twelve years after leaving California.

I dragged my eyes back from the window and crossed my arms. "Did you read the damn chapter?"

Forchetti smirked and pincered the spit-warm raisin of Juicy Fruit off his tongue. He held it up, pretending to sight down the damn thing, straight at my forehead.

I stared right back at his narrow face, at those baby features overwhelmed by black eyebrows he hadn't yet grown into. "Did you?"

Without looking down, Forchetti opened his copy of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings at a random page. He dropped the little gum wad inside and mashed the paperback shut against his chair's faux-wood paddle of desk.

"I wouldn't read this piece of shit," he said, "if you dropped to your knees and blew me."

Wiesner hissed, "Shut the fuck up, Foreskin."

Good-looking kid, Wiesner: six-five, white-blond hair slicked back, gray eyes with long dark lashes. He was just back from eight days in county lockup, after holding a teacher and a couple of students hostage with a carving knife so he could call his girlfriend long-distance on the principal's office phone. Now I had him for two out of three classes.

Forchetti dropped his eyes to the carpet.

"She is a shitty teacher," he whined, "and you owe a dollar to the Rape Crisis Fund for saying the F-word, Wiesner."

Which was true. Big-time rule here at the Santangelo Academy, because Dr. David Santangelo felt that "fuck" was a word fundamentally linked to violence against women.

It was, in fact, the only word the students weren't allowed to say. Or the teachers.

Wiesner pulled a crisp five from his pocket. "Four to go, then." He lifted his right hand, waggling the digits in Forchetti's direction.

"Madeline is not a fucking shitty teacher," he said, folding his index finger down on the stressed word. "You, on the other hand, are a fucking"-middle finger-"suckbag fuck"-ring finger- "and if you don't leave her alone, I'm going to fucking"- pinkie- "stomp your skinny ferret ass the next time I catch you alone in the showers."

Wiesner wadded up the money and tossed it at Forchetti's feet. "Be a sweetheart," he said. "Put that in Santangelo's little jar for me."

Forchetti blushed, but he picked the bill up off the floor and put it in his pocket.

I would have told Wiesner to lay off threatening a foot-shorter kid he had fifty pounds on, except Patti Gonzaga started growling, which was what happened the first week, right before she chunked her chair at my head.

The lunch bell went off, thank God. They stampeded into the hallway, all except Wiesner, who just stretched his legs out, still in his seat and grinning.

One last door slammed down the hall.

He ambled over and sat on the edge of my desk. "Penny for your thoughts."

"I think you'll be late for lunch."

"Figured I'd walk you over," he said.

"I still have to do everybody's marks."

We were supposed to rate how each kid behaved, right at the end of class. Forchetti'd racked up three straight weeks of zeroes-winner and still champion.

Wiesner lounged back on an elbow. "I can wait."

I pulled open the top drawer, looking for a pen. "They'll get all pissed if you're not there for the meds."

"You just seem kind of shaky," he said, voice all soothing. "I want to make sure you feel okay."

The drawer was full of crap, souvenirs of my predecessors-paper clips, barrettes, dental floss, half a roll of TUMS, and a screwdriver.

Teachers left this place in a hurry.

Wiesner leaned over, perusing the contents.

I looked up. "Of course there isn't a single fucking pen."

He smiled, extracting a Bic from his jacket.

"Trade you for that screwdriver," he said. "I need to make a phone call."

Wiesner and I angled across the lawn toward the dining hall. I didn't want to get there. I wanted to cut off into the woods and have a smoke, alone, only I couldn't because the other teachers would have smelled it on me and narked.

I shoved a hand deeper into the pocket of my leather jacket, fishing through its torn lining to grip my crumpled pack of Camel straights.

I hadn't even thought about cigarettes since college. Now they were the focus of my existence, along with caffeine. We weren't allowed to have that, either, which didn't stop me from sucking down thick-walled cups of the tepid institutional decaf, hoping in vain they'd missed scrubbing the kick from a bean or two.

The Santangelo Academy air was crisp and fresh after a week of rain, edged with wood smoke and rotting leaves. There was even a sweet breath of cider drifting up from the weed-choked orchard, planted back when this had all been some Bostonian nouveau magnate's country place, before the Civil War.

It was beautiful here in the Berkshires. I'd give it all that much.

"I like that Caged Bird book," said Wiesner.

He was lying. I shouldn't have cared.

"The lady who wrote it," I said, "I knew her brother Bailey. He used to come to our house."

I was going to tell Wiesner about this one time when I was little, maybe 1970, and Bailey saw me cutting dry rot out of a tree trunk in our backyard with a paring knife. He told me he'd bring me a switchblade as a present the next weekend he came down from Berkeley. Said he wanted to make sure I'd be okay "come the revolution," since I was pretty hip for a white kid.

I never got the knife. He never got the revolution.

Wiesner nudged my upper arm with his fist and said, "So, d'you do him, her brother?"

"Chrissake, Wiesner ..."

He grinned down at me. "Can't kid a kidder."

"I was, like, eight years old."

"Sure," he said, laughing now. "Sure you were."

I stopped walking. "Seriously,"

He gave me a pat on the head.

"What the hell kind of thing is that to even say?" I said, batting his hand away. "To anyone, let alone a teacher. I mean, would you pull that shit with Mindy or Gerald or Tim?"

"Do I look like an idiot?"

"So why me?"

"How about because you look good in that little skirt, and you're blonde with green eyes, and you're wearing cowboy boots, and it's a gorgeous day."

I rolled my eyes. Started walking away.

"Are you sure you want to know?" he asked, behind me now.

"Whatever."

"Turn around."

I sped up.

"Fine with me," he said. "I'd just as soon check out your ass from here."

I turned around.

Wiesner was still smiling

"We're late," I said. "If you want to say something that's not merely about pissing me off, I'll give you ten seconds."

He looked at the ground, a little embarrassed. "I say shit like that to you, Madeline, because I know I can, okay?"

I was touched. "Because you trust me."

"No, because you're too whacked to maintain appropriate boundaries."

He raised his eyes again, but I looked away. At the trees and stuff.

I'd always despised the shrink-sponsored murder of language- all precision and metaphor and beauty boiled away until there was nothing left but carbonized lumps of jargon.

"You have issues around authority," he continued. "I figure that's why you're here."

"That's why you're here, Wiesner. I'm here because it's a job."

He shrugged. "When you're ready to own your shit, you'll know why you're really here. That's what this place does."

"Cha," I said. "'Good for the disease.'"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It's from this book," I said. "Magic Mountain."

"Books don't help," he said.

"You'd be surprised," I said, even though I'd never managed to finish reading it myself, back at Sarah Lawrence.

He took my elbow and started us walking. "Can't kid a kidder."

Sometimes you can, Wiesner.

I was here because I'd killed a guy. And I owned the hell out of that.

The fact he'd been trying to kill me at the time hadn't helped me sleep any better since.

Neither had this place.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Crazy School by Cornelia Read Copyright © 2008 by Cornelia Read. Excerpted by permission.
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