Six crime novels set in public school classrooms

Frederick Weisel has been a writer and editor for more than 30 years. He graduated from Antioch College and has an MA in Victorian Literature and History from the University of Leicester in England. His short stories were awarded an Artists Fellowship from the Massachusetts Arts and Humanities Foundation, and his articles have appeared in the Boston Globe, Washington Post, and Christian Science Monitor.

The Silenced Women is his debut novel. The second novel in the VCI series, The Day He Left, brings back the five detectives to investigate a missing person case and was published in February 2022. Weisel is currently at work on the third novel in the VCI series. He lives with his wife in Santa Rosa, California, and shares a birthday with his favorite author, Raymond Chandler.

At CrimeReads Weisel tagged six "school mysteries set ... in today’s ordinary public schools, specifically middle and high schools," including:

Dare Me by Megan Abbott

This 2012 thriller by the redoubtable, Edgar-winning Megan Abbott was a bestseller and was made into a popular TV series. The novel ostensibly takes place in a public high school, but it is so drilled down into the subculture of a cheerleading squad that classrooms, teachers, and— with a few exceptions—adults barely exist. The story follows the conflicts that arise when a new cheer coach takes over the squad and crashes into the established power structure of the girls in the squad. Abbott does a brilliant job of capturing the inner lives of teenage girls, who are often far more knowing and tough than perceived by those around them. Murder is at the heart of this story, and as usual Abbott has surprises at every turn. Pervading the novel is the irony arising from the incongruity between the seemingly positive, encouraging nature of cheer and the cynical machinations of the players, which travel far from that surface nature. Once you read this novel, you’ll not only look differently at those smiling squads on a Saturday afternoon, you may want to run away as fast as you can.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Dare Me is among Rachel Kapelke-Dale's eleven unexpected thrillers about female rage, Debbie Babitt's eight top coming-of-age thrillers, Avery Bishop's top five novels that explore "mean girl" culture, Kelly Simmons's six books to buddy-read with your teen or twentyish daughter, Katie Lowe's top eight crime novels for angry women in an angry world, Kate Hamer's top ten teenage friendships in fiction, S.R. Masters's seven thrillers that capture some of the darker aspects of tight-knit friendship groups, Jessica Knoll's top ten thrillers, Brian Boone's fifty most essential high school stories, Julie Buntin's twelve books that totally get female friendship, L.S. Hilton's top ten female-fronted thrillers, Megan Reynolds's top ten books you must read if you loved Gone Girl, Anna Fitzpatrick's four top horror stories set in the real universe of girlhood and Adam Sternbergh's six notable crime novels that double as great literature.

--Marshal Zeringue