Richard Papen is our main character. He’s a directionless and mostly unmotivated college student. He doesn't seem to know what he wants in life but he does know that he wants to escape from his loveless family in California. Through conniving and a bit of truth-bending, Richard manages to get accepted into a school as far from his California roots as possible: Vermont’s Hampden College. Upon entering and attempting to schedule classes, he becomes intrigued with a professor who teaches Greek but only takes 5 students into the program. Through strange happenings (which never seem clear to the reader) Richard manages to get accepted into this exclusive program. Almost too easily, he is accepted into the clique of students already enrolled and well-know to each other. At one point, they reveal to Richard that they accidentally killed a man during a bacchanalian frenzy (drunken frenzy). And then, when one of their numbers seems ready to spill the secret, the group--now including Richard--must kill him, too. From that point on, what ensues is a story of covering-up and the paranoia that comes with that.
I liked this book I would even recommend it. However, my rating has more to do with the unlikable characters than anything else. Not one of the characters (even Richard) has a redeeming quality. They’re directionless, drunken, egotistical kids who think they are smarter than the world they live in. However, this, I believe was the point. The author seems to be trying to show that lives are easily lost when normal morality is ignored causing lives to change forever. Still, an enjoyable read and definitely a page-turner.
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