Luckily for us, Dobyns comes from the "readers need constant review" school of writing. That's good because when you get to the point (early in the book) when you are skimming for all that you are worth, you can still keep up with the thin story line that is lost under layers of useless detail. Robert Parker would have gone through this book with a machete and come up with a real page turner. I don't know if Dobyns was paid by the word or the character or both but the result is a story that had me rooting for the murderer. Dobyns does capture the essense of life on a prep school campus reasonably well (although the headmaster has entirely too much time to waste, as do the students who apparently don't have to show up for class). You can put your time to much better use.