Second-novelist Simons (Tully, 1994) returns with a tale seemingly
influenced by Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Unlike Tartt,
though, Simons chooses a real setting: Dartmouth College, in New
Hampshire. But despite the sharply observed locale, the story
remains pretty hard to swallow, and Simons can't match her model's
intellectual pretensions or in-depth explorations of character.
Here, four college seniors are supposedly best friends, but they
don't ever seem to like each other very much. The most charismatic
is Kristina Kim (who is not Asian, but who does provide,
eventually, a reason for her surname), the All-Ivy center on the
women's basketball team. Conni Tobias is Kristina's blond,
simpering roommate from freshman year; Jim Shaw is a budding
politician and Kristina's so-called boyfriend; Albert Maplethorpe
is Conni's steady of several years but, more importantly, possesses
an uncertain past and a connection to Krissy (as he calls her) that
no one seems to understand. When Kristina is found buried beneath a
snowdrift, naked but for her black boots, the three remaining
friends are immediate suspects; it is up to 30-year-old Detective
Spencer Patrick O'Malley - who happened to meet Kristina just
before she was killed - to figure out who's telling the truth. As
it turns out, nobody is; before long, Conni, who was desperately
jealous of Albert's relationship with Kristina, pleads guilty and
gets sent to jail; Jim drops out of school and starts working for a
bank; and Albert disappears without a trace. O'Malley figures out -
with some improbably fancy footwork involving fingerprints - that
Albert is not who he claims to be; when the truth is revealed, only
the most diligent readers will not say, "Huh?" Take this to the
beach if you must (okay, it's campy fun), but look elsewhere for a
mystery with real smarts. (Kirkus Reviews)
On a New England college campus, the naked body of a beautiful student is found frozen in a bank of snow. Why had she not even been reported missing by her friends?
Spencer O'Malley, the police detective assigned to the case, is soon drawn into the strange world of four friends, Jim, Conni, Albert and Kristina. O'Malley finds that these children of privilege who played, studied, and occasionally slept together also kept secrets of their own, secrets that must be pieced together to form an entirely new picture.
O'Malley is a stranger in this Ivy League environment, yet he feels an affinity with the victim. In her death, he gradually discovers the truth of her mysterious and complex life, and each revelation is more shocking that the last.
Suspenseful, claustrophobic and utterly compelling, 'Red Leaves' puts Paullina Simons in the very front rank of contemporary writers.
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