Boohoos on the Blackboard

a mystery novel

Enter in trepidation, only if you are sixteen or older, in a boys’ technical school in a small town in Australia. You will meet a teacher struggling to walk out of the dark shadows of her abused childhood, another seeking revenge for the cold-blooded murder of her parents in a Nazi concentration camp, and the principal known as Mr Ten Per Cent in some circles.

Spend a week in this fictitious school and surrounding vineyards hiding a chronic child abuser with a muddled mind, a constant psychopath impersonating a teacher he had killed, and a reluctant mafia don, and join students who wondered what scribbles—invariably in red, which started appearing on blackboards in classrooms—were endeavouring to reveal.

A sixteen-year-old schoolgirl with dyslexia would welcome your help to solve the mystery of two murders in the school when her father was a student, which, half a century on, is now her reputable, co-educational high school.

You may chuckle or cry while in the school, but no cuddling or kissing.