The Pledge

Simsbury College lacrosse star Mark Jessey looks on the members of the Sigma fraternity as his only true family. But when a Sigma freshman turns up dead, Mark is forced to question his deepest loyalties.

A less-than-rewarding debut thriller about rampant campus wickedness. Anson Templeton, dean of small but prestigious Simsbury College in Georgeville, Maine, is a rotter. He likes kinky sex, easy money, and bullying. Compare him with the brothers of Sigma Delta Phi, however, and he all but shines. Yet Sigma is Simsbury's premier fraternity house, home to big-men-on-campus, star athletes, and even a smartie or two. Everyone, it appears, yearns to go Sigma. But no onethat is, no outsiderreally knows what membership entails. What's demanded of Sigmas is nothing short of Mafia-like fealty. Orders come down from fat-cat alumni, through an eager brotherhood, to robotic pledges, who understand (its been beaten into them) that the edicts are to be obeyed without reference to propriety, morality, or even legality. For stalwart Sigmas the prizes are glittering: big jobs post-graduation, big incomes, the time-honored Faustian compact. And these shabby shenanigans have been going on for 200 yearsuntil the night the fun and games go too far, when the naked, badly mauled, hazed-to-death body of a Sigma pledge is found by a campus cop. Dean Templeton leaps immediately into action. The boy was depressed, he says. An obvious suicide. Tragic, certainly, but clearly Sigma is not at fault. He quickly convenes the student body's compliant Discipline Squad to participate in the cover-up, expecting it to rubber-stamp a phony investigation. But Templeton is wrong about two of the students: Shawn Jakes, the golden girl with the cantankerous mind, and Mark Jessy, the charming ne'er-do-well who turns out to be the stuff of superheroes. By bringing to light a corrosive pattern of chicanery, conspiracy, brutality, and, yes, murder, Jakes and Jessy eventually bring down the horrid house of Sigma. Irritating when it's not merely sillysordid, outlandish, and dispiriting. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

First novelist Kean's overlong tale of a pervasive, sinister college fraternity fails to thrill, and offers few other virtues. When freshman pledge Chad Ewing is found bloodied and dying after a hazing party for Sigma, the most prestigious frat on the campus of Maine's Simsbury College, scandal threatens the unsullied reputation of the elite school. Kean's hero, Mark JessyAa Simsbury senior, a former Sigma, a Native American and an all-American lacrosse starAlives under a cloud: accused of date rape two years before, Mark had escaped expulsion, but was forced to disaffiliate from his fraternity. Moreover (in a "punishment" no more implausible than Kean's other plot twists), Mark was named to serve on the college's student disciplinary tribunal, the D-Squad. Now Ewing's death threatens to bring Sigma's leaders before the D-Squad, charged with a fatal hazing, but penalties against the fraternity might expose Sigma's conspiracy of powerful, rich alumni, which even controls the FBI. The unscrupulous dean attempts an elaborate coverup, but the loose ends refuse to stay concealed. As a former Sigma brother himself, Mark could help prove the frat's crimesAif he discovers them, which Sigma isn't about to let him do. Mark's girlfriend and fellow D-Squad member, lovely blonde ski-champion Shawn Jakes, must convince him to help her investigate. As their fears of discovery escalate, Sigma's partisans resort to violence, and a narrative that began with a campus imbroglio ends with a string of combats and hot pursuits. Kean, a 28-year-old former frat brother at Bowdoin College in Maine, loses control of his narrative as it moves forward, letting subplots proliferate. Between the treatment of trumped-up date-rape charges and the running jokes at the expense of the Simsbury Women's Association, a group of caricatured females with a strident antimale agenda, readers familiar with the campus debates on which Kean's story draws may find him less antifrat than antifeminist. Only the gossipy sketches of collegiate life make this disjointed, clich?-ridden novel somewhat entertaining. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A Sigma Delta Phi pledge at Simsbury College is killed in a hazing incident in a small, sleepy town in Maine. The incident threatens 200 years of power building and wielding, unless it can be reported as an accident or, better yet, a suicide. The Sigma apparatus, including powerful alumni, move to tamper with evidence, the autopsy, police reports, and witnesses to cover the fraternity's role in the pledge's death. To provide a veneer of investigation, Dean Anson Templeton enlists the disciplinary council, the "D-Squad," to look into the death. Templeton heads the squad and expects that his handpicked member, Mark Jessy, a disgraced former Sigma member, will steer the squad to the desired conclusion. Mark's troubled past (his mother was killed by the FBI; his father is a fugitive Indian who avenged his wife's death) leaves him vulnerable to the appeal of belonging to an ersatz family. But Mark's girlfriend, Shawn Jakes, a fellow D-Squad member, is suspicious of the fraternity and its reputation for aggressive partying and pledging. Mark eventually teams with Shawn to uncover the larger truth about Sigma and Simsbury, with revelations concerning a greedy, ambitious dean, an aging college president, and ruthless Sigma alumni. The alums will do anything, from bribery to intimidation to murder, to protect their power network. This fast-paced debut novel captures college life and characters (the social hierarchy from jocks to nerds), the role of rumor and gossip on a small campus, and the strained relationships between privileged college students and disadvantaged townies. Vanessa Bush

Warner is hot for this debut, which features Simsbury College lacrosse star Mark Jessy. When a Sigma freshman pledge turns up dead, Mark investigatesAand discovers that the fraternity is a top-secret criminal organization. Look for the motion picture.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.