An Educated Death

The latest Thea Kozak mystery jumps off to a fine beginning but sags under a weighty grab-bag of subplots and Thea's garrulous narration. While she's helping her lover, Maine State Police detective Andre Lemieux, recover from his partner's death (Death at the Wheel, 1996), Thea, a private school consultant, is called to the co-ed Bucksport School where a student has drowned. Brash, workaholic Thea must calm parents and students while trying to control the damage to the school's reputation. In the process, she makes several discoveries: the dead girl, Laney Taggert, was pregnant, probably by a faculty member; Laney's house parents are too distracted by their own problems to supervise their students; a groundskeeper has a history of sexually abusing adolescent girls. Everyone whom Thea interviews has something to hide. Stubbornly, she interferes with the police investigation, fights with Andre, almost succumbs to a poisoning attempt and is wounded in the contrived climax. Flora rings some new changes on the academic mystery with her contemporary private school settings and relentless detective, but she dilutes the effect with telegraphed clues and repetitious explanations. (Oct.)