The Chatham School Affair is a suspense novel, and Cook is a master at building suspense. He reveals the true nature of the crime in the final chapter, and the punch is unexpected and poignant. The reader believes early on that it must have been a crime of passion committed by Miss Channing and Leland Reed, and that Abigail and Mary Reed, Leland's wife and daughter, were the likely victims. But this is not so, and Henry's role remains unclear until the end of the novel. It is significant that Henry is the narrator and that the story unravels only through Henry's eyes. This is a coming-of-age novel as well as a tale of suspense, and because Henry, in his seventies, has had the time to work through what happened, he is now able to relive it. The reader, therefore, only sees the characters as Henry...