The author of The Blood Lance and The Painted Messiah demonstrates his versatility with this dark, stylish noir thriller set on and around a Midwestern university campus I turned thirty-seven that summer, older than Dante when he toured Hell, but only by a couple of years. Life couldn't be better for David Albo, an associate professor of English at a small midwestern university. He lives in an idyllic, out-of-town, plantation-style mansion with a beautiful and intelligent wife and an adoring teenage stepdaughter. As he returns to the university after a long and relaxing sabbatical, there is a full professorship in the offing—and, what's more, he has managed to stay off the booze for two whole years. But, once term begins, things deteriorate rapidly.
