Another bucolic fall in northern New Hampshire, and the semester is under way at Bishop’s Hill Academy. But this year the start of school has been less than tranquil. The new headmaster, Jim Hawthorne, has liberal ideas that the staff find far from welcome; eloquent as he is on the subject of honor, rumor has it he’s taken this job to escape his past. And Hawthorne isn’t the only uneasy newcomer. There’s Jessica Weaver, a stripper at fifteen, and Frank LeBrun, a replacement cook who’s a bit too quick with a dirty joke. All three have secrets to conceal, memories to suppress.
Serene on the surface, the ivy-clad, tree-lined campus gives few clues to the school’s history of special privileges, petty corruptions, and hidden allegiances. And as winter closes in, students, teachers, and staff get an education in savagery and murder. With his uncanny awareness of the intricacies of human nature, the acclaimed author of The Church of Dead Girls once again probes the daily life of an ordinary community to reveal the depths of good and evil.
“Once again, Dobyns has offered readers a thriller that is swift and smart and very, very spooky.” –The Washington Post Book World
“A shivery whodunit.” –USA Today
“Dobyns creates a haunted, troubled realm.” –The Providence Sunday Journal
“Nasty fun.” –Daily News
“The author has thoroughly mixed several genres—horror, the fiction of personal crisis, suspense—into a weird and original concoction that is highly entertaining.” –The Chicago Tribune
“An atmospheric thriller.” –San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle
“Like the best thriller writers, Dobyns not only scares us with what is out there but also with what we find (or don't find) within ourselves.” –Booklist
“Mr. Dobyns is a masterly poet and shrewd mystery writer…moody and evocatively written.” –Dallas Morning News
“If you take Boy in the Water to the beach, take lots of sunscreen; you may sit longer than you planned, following this thriller to its intense conclusion.” –Schenectady Gazette
“[Dobyns’s] prose is fluent and the plot races along like clockwork. -- The New York Times Book Review
“Set in the New Hampshire mountains at remote Bishop's Hill Academy, Dobyns's new novel succeeds… Recommended for all mystery collections.” –Library Journal
