Passion Play

by W. Edward Blain

Set in the insular, genteel world of an all-boys prep school, this tense and electrifying Edgar-nominated classic surrounding an all-too-deadly production of Othello is now back in print.

In New York City, a young man is found murdered in a dingy Times Square sex theater—his neck gruesomely snapped—and the only clue is a torn receipt from the Montpelier School for Boys bookstore.



Christmas break is just a couple of weeks away when Montpelier student Russell Phillips fetches up dead. Headmaster Lane, preferring to view Phillips’s death as a suicide, decides to keep the school open for the remainder of the term. But as the nights grow longer and colder—and more corpses begin to surface in connection with the rehearsals for Othello, the winter play—it becomes all too clear that the students and faculty are being stalked by a cool and calculating killer.



The local police and school administrators find themselves out of their depth. Even so, many people’s suspicions begin to focus on a single suspect—until he, too, turns up dead.



A gripping tour de force that brilliantly uses an isolated boarding school campus as the setting for this propulsive mystery, Passion Play will keep the reader guessing until the final act.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery

354 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

W. Edward Blain is a graduate of Washington and Lee University and the University of Virginia. After 44 years of teaching English to high school seniors--the first six of those years at Berry Academy outside Rome, Georgia, and the final 38 at Woodberry Forest School in Madison County, Virginia--he retired to his hometown of Roanoke to write, read, and relax full time.

Check out his blog:
https://www.wedwardblain.com/talk-of-...

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel, set in an exclusive American boarding school for boys, was first published in 1990. At the end of this book, the author writes that he was tempted to re-write this novel, but I am glad he resisted. For those of us who grew up without the internet, mobile phones and the ability to contact anyone at any time, we can easily recall student Thomas Boatwright’s attempts to get hold of the lovely Hesta, who haunts his thoughts. Although they constantly miss each other’s phone calls, there will be a ‘mixer,’ when girls will visit the hallowed halls of the Montpelier School for Boys, and this is one of the recurring themes of this very interesting, literary crime novel.

Without doubt, this novel is set in a different time and we start out in the New York of the past. Times Square is not full of glossy shops and tourists, but it is a much darker, seedier place. We start with a man who is hurrying down those tawdry streets when he commits a crime and that crime is later linked to a suspicious death at the school. Although the police are involved in this investigation, in the shape of local investigator Carol Scott, this is very much not the centre of the story. That is the characters that inhabit the school, and possibly the school itself. There are the various faculty members; including Chairman of the English Department, Benjamin Warden, whose young wife, Cynthia, has suddenly developed the symptoms of what both fear is a serious illness, Daniel Farnham, who is planning to stage “Othello,” with Cynthia as Desdemona and Thomas Boatwright’s roommate, Greg Lipscomb, as Othello, Horace Somerville, who taught Benjamin as a young man, coach Patrick McPhee and Headmaster, Eldridge Lane.

I really enjoyed this novel. I liked the setting, the slower pace than so many modern crime novels and the depth of the characters. A very enjoyable read and a well written book. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

[Siobhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Passion Play is a tense mystery novel set on the isolated campus of a boys’ prep school, originally written in the late eighties and now reprinted. The death of a young man in a New York sex theater is connected to Montpelier School For Boys by a receipt, but the school seems miles away from the seedy city killing. However, when people start dying on the school campus, it seems that Montpelier might not be the safe little community that it wants to project, and the faculty find themselves under suspicion. At the same time, a production of Othello is being rehearsed at the school, with the actors needing to tap into some raw passion, but passion might be something the school already has too much of.

Blain’s novel is an enjoyable murder mystery and though—as his modern afterword acknowledges—death at American schools is no longer in the confines of fiction, the book still holds up all these years later. Some of this is due to the prep school setting which suits the lack of modern technology, giving it a more set apart from the world feel that suggests a locked room type mystery where the answers must come from within. The fact that the novel combines the point of view (via a third person narrator) of both faculty and students works well, meaning that part of the book is teenage boys worrying about their problems and not taking the threat of murder too seriously and part of it are more adult concerns about careers and relationships.

In some ways the novel feels like a more fleshed out Point Horror type book—and indeed it’s a crime book that teenagers may enjoy as well as adults particularly thanks to the setting—but it is a decent read, with the required twists and turns as plenty of people could be the suspects. Passion Play can be a little slow at times, but the ending picks up pace and has a good level of tension. It is a murder mystery for people who like stories about prestigious yet flawed communities and the strange quirks of elite schools and universities.

[Rekha O'Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This mystery is set in an exclusive boy's boarding school. From the beginning we know that there is a deeply disturbed person liviing and working in the boarding house that has already murdered someone.
The personalities and passions of the staff and students are slowly revealed through their interactions with each other, and the end of year play that they are all involved in, Othello. Othello, Themes of jealousy, power, manipulation and honour are all interwoven and run parallel to the Bard's observations in this novel.
I thought I would love it, having been to boarding school myself, and understanding what isolated microchosms they are.
Recently I have been reading a lot of fiction by female authors or with female protagonists. The majority of the characters in this novel are men, many of them adolescent. I didn't understand adolescent males when I was an adolescent, and I certainly don't understand them now, even though I am raising my own. I think that's why alot of the motivations and inner dialogue of the central characters were lost on me.
I found the constant talking in circles and the ridiculous egos baffling. I weep at the futility and tragedy in Othello. I just wanted to weep with frustration at these men and boys.
Having said that, the men in my life would probably love it. I'd recommend it to them. It's very well-written.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. I thought I had the suspect pegged from the beginning, but I really did not. Quite a few twists and turns. Perhaps a good starter mystery for young readers.

[Leyla Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started with a lot of promise, it became a little over done, and the end was very dramatic - but then it was all a play!!
Quite a good read really