Killing Mr. Griffin

Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan

I listened to the audiobook and heard them mention google and spellcheck. Wasn't this book published in 1978? Ah it was, but it was "modernized" in 2010.

Mr. Griffin is a tough English teacher. He went to Stanford and was teaching at a college. He decided to go to a high school in order to improve the education of students before they reach college. He is not easy on students and even the best students get worst grades than they expect.

One student gets the idea of "roughing him up." They plan to kidnap him so that he will beg them for mercy. Then they expect him to be a kinder student. The ringleader sings to always have the right answers. A few others join in, including some of the best students at the school. After school, they abduct him and drive him up to a secret place they know of. He refuses to do what they want, so they leave him there until after the game.

When they do go to see him, they find he is dead. They rely on the ringleader, Mark, to come up with a plan. He says they will bury him, then leave the car at the airport. They take his wallet and Stanford ring. They will spread stories to imply an affair. Mark seems to always have the right ideas. The others feel they are now committed and need to go along. Alas, the lies keep catching up with them. Somebody discovers the body and the missing ring. Mr Griffin's wife identifies holes in the story. Mark tries to fix some the problems by killing a grandma, and then trying to burn a house with one of the co-conspirators in it. The group finally discover they have been following a psychopath murderer. Their attempts to hide their actions only made matters worse. The message is that you should do what is right and watch for psychopaths. In reading it, I just wondered why it was taking some of the kids so long to fess up. They felt guilty and did not want to keep going, yet they felt a need to get the advice of the psychopath.