The Judas Pool

Before he can find out why his former star pupil has falsely claimed that they slept together, a high-school music teacher is framed for her murder and must track down his cagy adversary in order to prove his innocence. A first novel.

YA-Steven Blake is a semi-contented high school music teacher and band director until one of his students, Lisa Wood, accuses him of sexual misconduct. His disbelief of her charges is not shared by his administration, especially when two of Lisa's friends and her father support her accusations. Blake's position is further jeopardized by his troubled marriage to Lisa's former stepmother and the suspicious nature of her mother's death. The young woman confides in him that she has been forced into making the false claims against him, but her drowned body is discovered before she can clear his name. Set in Lewes, Delaware, The Judas Pool carries a nautical theme as well as a double mystery and surprise ending. YAs will enjoy this fast-paced thriller.
Katherine Fitch, Lake Braddock Secondary School, Burke, VA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A protagonist so nice he squeaks and a generous sprinkling of purple prose ("a world where a wife became a knife to the heart . . . . There was no solid ground") mark this promising psychological thriller as a first novel. Thirty-something Steven Black, high school teacher and weekend jazz saxaphonist, likes living in the old family house on the Delaware shore, but his ambitious lawyer wife, Gail, itches for the big time in Philadelphia. Steven's placid world is shattered when a former pupil, Lisa Wood, accuses him of having seduced her. To complicate matters, Lisa is his wife's ex-stepdaughter. Lisa's father and his hulking son, Todd, beat up Steven verbally and physically before Lisa retracts her accusation, privately telling him that her abusive father forced her to lie. (Yes, this is yet another plot that revolves around parental sexual molestation.) Lisa shows her good intentions by sabotaging her father's plans for a major shorefront development but then she--and her father's paper trail--vanish. When her body is found in the Bay, Steven must clear himself, but not before a confrontation with the killer, whose identity will not come as a surprise. Owen has created a sympathetic, if sometimes passive, hero, and he writes vividly about jazz, but sharper editing would help his future efforts.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A high school music teacher is caught in a scandal during the last sultry days of summer in a small Delaware town. Steven Blake is suddenly accused of sleeping with one of his students, bright but troubled Lisa Wood. He rejects the school's offer of a furtive resignation in order to discover the truth behind this false accusation. When Gail Moncure, Steven's upwardly mobile wife, a lawyer who longs to move to a big city, hears that he has rejected the easy way out, she walks out on him and their already failing marriage. Complications abound since Gail used to be married to Lisa's father, Jacob Wood, a hard-nosed realtor who has long held a grudge against Steven for marrying Gail. Steven sees Lisa in secret and she confesses that her father has put her up to the surprise accusation; she also shows him plans that indicate her father is involved in some shady real-estate deals. When Lisa's body is found floating in the bay, Steven is the prime murder suspect and must struggle to clear his name and find the real killer. As his world falls apart, his only allies are his fellow teacher Jimmy Van Dusen, the school psychologist, Melinda Samuels, and the musicians he moonlights with on weekends. First-novelist Owens's potentially intriguing idea--innocent man uncovers the secrets of a small town--gets bogged down in a slow and predictable plot with sketchy and stereotypical characters. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A marriage under pressure, high temperature and humidity in a Delaware coastal town, and pre-Labor Day band practice become the least of high school music teacher Steven Blake's problems when Lisa, a gifted former student, says that they had an affair when she was a minor. Two classmates and Lisa's father, the ex-husband of Blake's discontented wife, corroborate the charge. Before Blake can discover why she is lying, Lisa is murdered. His efforts to avoid arrest on both charges uncover many truths about those around him and himself. Well-defined characters and settings, as well as skillful plot development, characterize this strong first novel. Recommended for most fiction collections.
- V. Louise Saylor, Eastern Washington Univ. Lib., Cheney
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.