Our Beautiful Boys

In Pandya’s riveting latest (after Members Only), a Southern California high school is roiled when three football players are accused of assaulting a classmate. Running back Vikram Shastri, a junior and first-generation Indian American, joins the team late in the season and scores two touchdowns in his first game. His celebratory dinner with cocaptains Diego Cruz and MJ Berringer is crashed by bully and drug dealer Stanley Kincaid, who invites the three to a party in a former Native American cave dwelling. There, a drunk Stanley mouths off and lunges at Vikram. He and the others fend off Stanley and leave him in the cave with a split lip. When Stanley emerges later that night, however, he’s mysteriously in much worse shape. After he’s hospitalized, the school principal begins an investigation and calls in the parents, and the boys forge a pact to stay silent. As tensions ignite between the families along class and racial lines, the boys’ pact breaks down and the plot ramps up. Pandya explores the controversy from multiple angles as it affects Vikram’s father’s chances of moving up at his tech job; mars the reputation of Diego’s single mother, a Latin American historian at UCLA; and exacerbates hidden tensions in the seemingly perfect marriage of MJ’s wealthy white parents. This is a stunner. Agent: Seth Fishman, Gernert Co. (Mar.)