Head Case by Bonnie Traymore
What's It About?
A fast-paced unputdownable page-turner, perfect for fans of Freida McFadden, Daniel Hurst, Shari Lapena and Shalini Boland.Everyone at Falcon Ridge Academy is hiding secrets in Head Case — a deliciously twisty thriller set at a remote school in the Catskills Mountains of upstate New York.
Cassie Romano is a troubled young English teacher running away from dangers in her past. Her boss is a bully of a woman who may or may not be a murderer. A top school board official is also a businessman mired deep into financial corruption that could put him in jail. And Cassie’s love interest — another teacher at the school — packs a gun and is definitely not who he seems to be.
Author Bonnie Traymore does a masterful job of revealing information about all of them piece by piece — along with all sorts of red herrings and misdirection and other shocking surprises.
Adding to all this intrigue is the wonderfully eerie, almost spooky, setting of the story — a lonely school on top of a mountain in the middle of winter surrounded by nothing but ice and snow and miles and miles of wilderness.
Heartbroken Retreat to Isolated School Turns Sour
The story begins with a bang when a faculty member at the school — who seemingly knows many of the dark secrets lurking behind its walls — is mysteriously killed in a fall down a flight of stairs at a train station as she was trying to flee the area. Although at first her death is thought to be an accident, it quickly becomes clear that this was murder. By someone who didn’t want the dead woman to tell anyone what was really going on at Falcon Ridge Academy.
Cassie, who had retreated to the isolated school in an attempt to heal her heartbreak over the breakup of a relationship she was in, is initially reluctant to get involved — even though she had been close friends with the victim.
We soon learn that this is because she’s afraid that the secrets she’s hiding from her own past will be revealed if she calls any kind of attention to herself as part of the murder investigation. Her whole back story plays out throughout the book, from the time she was a happy 13-year-old girl whose entire life was changed forever by stunning news from her mother and father.
Although Cassie is the main protagonist, the story is told from several different viewpoints — the good people and the bad — as more violence erupts and sends shock waves through the faculty and students at the school.
Likable and Despicable Characters Full of Secrets
We get poignant scenes of the corrupt school board official trying to balance his muddled financial situation with protecting the wife and daughter he loves so much from being part of his scandal.
Cassie’s boss, who is currently the #2 administrator at Falcon Ridge Academy, shows us how she will do anything — whether unethically or even illegally — to get promoted to the top job at the school. She is a truly unpleasant, ruthless, despicable woman — which makes her a great character in this book. You will really love to hate her.
And then there is the teacher Cassie is romantically involved with, a man named Dan who mysteriously appeared at the school out of nowhere to replace the woman who died. Cassie loves kissing and spending time with Dan. But she becomes suspicious of him when she finds a gun in his room and learns more disturbing facts about him. Is he the man she’s been looking for — or is he an enemy she should be afraid of, the danger she’s been running away from for her entire life?
Definitely Want to Read More From This Author
The tension continues to build — with Traymore cleverly jumping back and forth between different narrators to tell the story — until a stunning violent confrontation at the end that you won’t see coming.
And don’t stop reading there for any reason because there’s some fascinating “epilogue” material that follows which brings Head Case to a satisfying conclusion on several different levels.
This is the second book by Bonnie Traymore that I have read. The first — Killer Motives — was completely different than this one. But I loved both books. The pages in them just fly by and the story moves along at breakneck speed the whole way. I definitely plan to read more from this author. Hey, I’m a fan.
About Bonnie Traymore:
Bonnie Traymore is the award-winning author of suspenseful, page-turner, domestic and psychological thrillers that hit close to home. Her books consistently hit the hot new release page on Amazon. Her thrillers have been described as entertaining page-turners. They aren’t overly graphic and sometimes include occasional touches of romance and humor, but all in service of a fast-paced thriller read. The plots touch on disturbing topics such as sexual assault, revenge, murder, psychological disorders and the complexities of human behavior, so they aren’t exactly cozy either. She aims to entertain and engage readers, and maybe freak them out a bit, but not give them nightmares. FYI, she likes to include multiple points of view in her books. If you like that, her books might be for you.
Originally from the New York City area, she lives in Honolulu with her family but frequents Hudson Valley, New York City, and the Bay Area. She has been reading mystery and thriller novels her entire life, and she’s been writing short stories and non-fiction for decades. She is also an award-winning non-fiction writer, historian and educator. She’s taught at top independent schools in Honolulu, Silicon Valley and New York City, and she’s taught history courses at Columbia University and the University of Hawaii. She’s an active member of Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers.
