School Was Murder

The Canadian Religious Academy of Peseux faces a problem much more difficult than its acronym (C.R.A.P.). On two separate outings away from this private school's home base in Switzerland, two of the academy's teachers have died under suspicious circumstances. No arrests have been made, and there are few clues to the identity of the perpetrator. Rumours of the school's closing persist, and the academy's credibility hangs by a thread.

Additionally, many of the school's teenaged students and their teachers are about to embark on a trip to Greece and Italy that cannot be cancelled. Still, the school cannot afford to lose another teacher. George Szego, chairman of the Canadian half of the school's governing board, convinces Theodore Pantaloni, a private investigator from Toronto, to look into the teachers' deaths.

Pantaloni, who has had years of criminal study, must travel with the teachers and their students to both investigate and possibly thwart another murder attempt. With little evidence to lead him, neither teachers nor students are above Pantaloni's suspicion.

Jim McMurtry was born and raised in Toronto, received a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, and later became a principal at a finishing school at the foot of the Jura Mountains in Switzerland. He teaches English and history in Surrey, British Columbia, where his wife is a vice-principal.