Shadow of the Lions

June 1, 2017
A novelist returns to his former prep school to teach, stirring up old memories of a schoolmate who vanished and various present-day student and teacher troubles in this debut novel.When Fritz Davenport goes missing in March of his senior year at the Blackburne School, his best friend and roommate, Matthias, assumes a fight they had was a contributing factor. Ten years later Matthias is back at the all-boys' school to teach English, having recently lost his girlfriend and confidence in his writing as he works on his second novel, for which he received a big advance. With Matthias narrating, Swann toggles between his character's student and teacher periods, showing how intense friendships and cruelty can mark adolescence indelibly and exploring how people deal with the memories and wounds as adults. Matthias exemplifies dealing badly. He's a bundle of unsettled issues, including his failings as a novelist, a busted love for Fritz's twin sister, his neglect of his parents--he probably doesn't even floss regularly. But it's Fritz's unresolved fate that eats at him most, a scab freshly torn with the death of one of his students in an unsolved shooting incident. He connects with a helpful deputy sheriff who originally worked on the Fritz case and stumbles on a campus figure who may be tied to both the recent student death and the decade-old disappearance. Trying to be both a school-days tale and a mystery, the novel doesn't do either full justice, giving only glancing views of student life and, for a while, just spotty details and speculation on what might have happened to Fritz. But Swann steps on the gas for the last 100 pages, at which point the mystery takes off and it's a pretty good ride. A patchy but promising work that suggests a writer likely to prove much stronger with his sophomore effort.

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September 4, 2017
An unsolved mystery plunges the best friend of a missing person into sinuous intrigues 10 years later in this confidently plotted literary thriller. In 2001, Fritz Davenport, a senior at the Blackburne School in Virginia, vanishes shortly after an emotional confrontation about a cheating incident admitted by his best friend, Matthias Glass. Fritz’s disappearance devastates his family and the lack of closure about his fate casts a pall over Matthias’s life. In 2011, Matthias—recovering from a failed relationship and blocked as a novelist—has taken on a temporary teaching gig at Blackburne. A student’s death rips open old wounds that he seeks to stanch with a renewed inquiry into Fritz’s fate. Exploring new clues provided by authorities and acquaintances, Matthias uncovers familial and institutional pathologies that his younger, guilt-ridden self could never have imagined. Swann renders his debut novel’s prep school setting with an authority that lends credibility to some of the more farfetched twists of its plot. Its melodramatic denouement notwithstanding, his tale keeps the reader guessing until it offers up its final revelations.

July 1, 2017
When Matthias Glass' roommate and best friend, Fritz, disappears without a trace after they have an argument, Matthias feels responsible. Ten years later, after some success as a novelist with a wild lifestyle, Matthias decides that he needs to refocus and accepts a teaching position at the exclusive boys' boarding school that he and Fritz attended. Once there, he becomes obsessed with Fritz, seeing his face on strangers while picking up bits of information that shed a new light on the day of his disappearance. Matthias follows each lead as it comes, grappling in turn with the police, the school administration, Fritz's powerful D.C. family, and a vengeful drug dealer. The characters are well drawn, and the first-person narrative pulls the reader along with Matthias on his emotional roller-coaster ride in search of redemption. Swann's masterfully measured debut novel is a powerful coming-of-age tale in the tradition of A Separate Peace and will appeal to readers who enjoy literary fiction with an air of mystery and suspense.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)