Something Dangerous. This item is unavailable.Something Dangerous

Kirkston Abbey is no place for weak or sensitive boys. Jonathan Palmer cant believe his good fortune when Richard Rokeby seeks out his friendship. Rokeby is everything Jonathan is not: wealthy, strong, handsome, aloofeven the professors cant touch him. As the bond between the two boys deepens, Rokeby grows increasingly possessive. Soon, Jonathan comes to realize that there is something not quite right about his new friend. Something a bit off-kilter. Something... dangerous. What started out as an innocent game among schoolboys turns into a nightmare as Jonathan finds himself powerless to stop Richard from unleashing a diabolical force that threatens to consume them all.

Right from the hair-raising start of this stunning debut, readers will know that something awful is going to happen at the British boys' boarding school, Kirkston Abbey. Thanks to Redmond's masterfully subtle foreshadowing, a brooding sense of impending disaster is maintained throughout his gripping suspense thriller. Set in the late '50s and bookended by a pair of scenes in which a reporter introduces and closes the story, the narrative centers on loner Richard Rokeby. "Arrestingly good looking," sharp-tongued, smart and aloof, Rokeby unnerves schoolmasters and students alike. James Wheatley, campus tough guy, will do anything to impress and befriend Rokeby, but Rokeby gives his friendship to sensitive Jonathan Palmer instead. Rokeby and Palmer recognize an indefinable "something" that bonds them intensely, and during one school holiday, they play an angry little game on a Ouija board. The details given to the reader are scant at first, but the eventual violent results are terrifyingly vivid. Rokeby becomes possessive of Palmer, domineering and jealous, evolving into an amoral monster and coolly rattling all the skeletons in the closets of Kirkston Abbey's faculty and students. Redmond tantalizes with his miserly description of those secrets, adding to the novel's cumulative power; an aura of tangible menace hisses behind the narrative's unfolding like a slow fuse heading for dynamite. There's a dark fairy tale at the core of the mystery (both Palmer and Rokeby have serious stepmother issues) and a kind of ethical dilemma for readers, who will not know whom to root for as the villains and heroes mutate and shift positions. The climax is refreshingly nonformulaic. Readers will welcome a writer bold enough to leave some things to the imagination, especially when that audacity is accompanied by the finesse Redmont displays here. $150,000 ad/promo. (Sept.) FYI: London lawyer Redmond's novel has been published in the U.K. as The Wishing Game.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.