The Crazy School

by: Cornelia Read

Published by: Grand Central Publishing

Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhart

Although I didn’t particularly care for Cornelia Read’s first Madeline Dare novel, A Field of Darkness, I know talent when I read it. So I jumped at the chance to read her second novel featuring Madeline, The Crazy School.

Madeline finds herself in the Berkshires, teaching at a school for extremely troubled teenagers. The Santangelo Academy is located on the grounds of “some Bostonian nouveau magnate’s country place, before the Civil War.” She is one of the few teachers who do not reside on the premises. Having Madeline live off-campus makes it easier for Read to create diversions and scenes that help tie the plot neatly together and to keep Madeline’s husband Dean in the picture.

Founded by David Santangelo, who is as weird as they come, the Academy has as many strange and unprecedented rules for teachers as it does for students, like ratting each other out, the only word not allowed is the F-word, calling teachers by their first names, group therapy sessions, and being sent to “the Farm.” Many/most of the students identify with Madeline, because she has a mouth on her like most of them. She doesn’t take any shit off them and gives back everything she gets.

Read does a good job of setting up the situation and giving readers great backstory before Madeline’s punch is spiked at a birthday party (held on the Farm, where the kids are sent when they completely mess up) for one of her favorite students, Fay. Read goes a bit overboard in describing how Madeline pukes her guts out. Gross factor aside, Fay and her boyfriend, Mooney, have plans to leave the Academy now that they are both eighteen. But before they can, Madeline learns a baby is on the way, and Fay and Mooney are found the next morning in what appears to be a double suicide. When pressured to investigate further, the police suspect Madeline. It’s up to Madeline and her friends at the Academy to find out who did it.

While the red herrings are more obscure in The Crazy School and aren’t as easily identifiable, Read blurs the lines between calling this novel a mystery and fiction. A remarkable achievement in my mind. I liked Madeline better in this novel; she seems less over-the-top and more like a real person. Read is settling into her talent and, I think, will continue to do so as long as she writes.

Armchair Interviews says: Count on Cornelia Read to tell a good story.