A riveting mystery debut of suspense,

terror, and passion run amok.

A young male prostitute is found mur-

dered in the aisle of a Times Square

movie theater his neck gruesomely

snapped--and the only clue is a torn

receipt from the Montpeller School for

Boys bookstore.

Christmas break is just a couple of

weeks away when Montpelier student

Russell Phillips fetches up dead. Head-

master Lane, preferring to view Philllps s

death as a suicide, opts to keep the school open for the remainder of the

term. But as the nights grow longer and

colder and more corpses begin to sur-

face, it becomes all too clear that the

students and faculty are being stalked

by a cool and calculating killer.

The local police and school adminis-

trators are baffled; there doesn t seem

to be any rhyme or reason to the killer s

choice of victims. Even so, many people s

suspicions focus on a single suspect--

until he too turns up dead.

A gripping tour de force by a fresh,

new talent, Passion Play will keep the

reader guessing until the final act.

W. Edward Blain is the chairman of

the English department at Woodberry

Forest School in Virginia. He is cur-

rently working on a second novel.