Best-selling mystery author Cornelia Read is on tour with her second Madeline Dare book, The Crazy School, by Grand Central Publishing and Blackstone Audiobook in 2008. Meet her at Bookwagon New and Used Books in Ashland on Friday August 8, 2008 at 6pm.

Maddie’s escaped Syracuse, New York only to land at the Santangelo Academy, a school for troubled teens in the Berkshires. It’s a threatening, isolated place, where almost nothing is as it seems and the kids become saner than the faculty. Maddie is New England proper, with a protective veneer that conceals an increasingly troubled outlook. Honesty and self-awareness are continuing themes, which when forgotten lead to murder, breaking the academy’s pretense of civility and reason.

"Another bitterly amusing mystery from the author of A Field of Darkness (2006). Read borrows elements from different genres to craft a strange, compelling narrative, one that frequently approaches—but never quite descends to—the excesses of melodrama. Madeline's deadpan voice, acid wit and psychological depth are the perfect counterpoint to the novel's positively Gothic plot. Caustic, gripping and distinctive—intelligent entertainment.”   — Kirkus Reviews