Once the iron gates clank closed behind you, it’s already too late. Whether a prep school is located on a winding road heading toward Malibu or on one that leads to a remotecampus in New England, seclusion is always at play in its portrayal. Cut off from the world at large, students can encounter almost anything before outside authorities catch on, and no matter the academy, secrets can always be hidden away, for a price. Is it any wonder these institutions are the sets for this season’s most chilling novels?
Bret Easton Ellis’s new novel, The Shards, is set in the 1980s at the Buckley School—the L.A. academy the author attended—where students lead lavish lives filled with privilege and partying. The book follows a (somewhat) fictional teenage Ellis and his friends as they welcome Robert Mallory, a charismatic new student and possible serial killer into their lives. Over 600 pages readers are drawn into a world that demonstrates the danger inherent in the collision of wealth and teenage boredom—and, more frighteningly, of what can be hidden on school grounds. Having enough money to do whatever you want and also cover up your most disturbing mistakes might be something people dream about, but Ellis makes clear that it’s something to fear as well. The ability to move through the world without consequence begets not only the perfect villain but the perfect setting for him to act in.
Rebecca Makkai scrutinizes both privilege and isolation in her new book, I Have Some Questions for You, which follows Bodie Kane, a successful podcaster who returns to her New England boarding school to teach. In light of a resurgence of public interest in the decades-old murder of one of her classmates, Bodie finds herself increasingly convinced that the wrong man was put behind bars. Questions immediately arise about the subtler reasons elite schools are such fertile ground for thrillers.
Boarding schools are often surrounded by communities where the economy is inextricably intertwined with that of their preppy neighbors; relations between those residing behind the gates and the “townies” can be a powder keg for conflict. There’s racism, too (seen in the most realistic depictions of these schools, on and off campus), so some students are victimized more easily than others, in both real life and fiction.
Even the friendliest of prep schools can be shrouded in mystery; high tuitions make them inaccessible to most, and so myths grow as people imagine what goes on inside their walls. Are the students atop the hill taking regular old AP chemistry, or is something strange and sinister afoot? Perhaps they’re taking classes in the art of murder, like students in Rupert Holmes’s new Murder Your Employer.
Whatever the circumstance that brings readers to campus, secrets await. These institutions continue to make excellent backgrounds for dark happenings, and much like the schools themselves, the thrillers that take place in them will keep you locked in—whether you like it or not.
WHODUNIT ?
THE NEW KID Did he transfer from Andover or a juvenile detention center? It’s never easy starting at a new school, but it’s a lot more difficult when your arrival coincides with the start of a killing spree.
THE JOCK Strength, speed, and access to those creepy equipment sheds can make athletes prime suspects in prep school horror stories. Is that mud on your field hockey skirt or a splatter of blood?
THE POPULAR GIRL Regina George never killed anyone, but maybe she just didn’t have the chance. Charm and charisma can easily disguise the fact that the prom queen and Carrie have some unsettling things in common.
THE TEACHER Older, wiser, and always a bit mysterious, teachers at prestigious academies are a natural fit for prime suspect status when things go awry. Sometimes pop quizzes aren’t the only killers.
This story appears in the February 2023 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
