You Killed Wesley Payne
Amazon Exclusive: M.T. Anderson ReviewsYou Killed Wesley PayneM.T. Andersonlives outside Boston. His satirical novelFeedwas a Finalist for the National Book Award and was winner of theLos Angeles TimesBook Award. His Gothic historical novel,Octavian Nothing, Volume 1, won the National Book Award.The Boston Globerecently named his fantasy thrillerThe Suburb Behind the Starsone of the 10 Best Children's Books of 2010.“Clique. Click. Bang.”Dalton Rev shows up at his new school dressed to detect in a crisp white shirt and a sharp tie--though in this post-Chandler noir-scape, this doesn’t earn him respect so much as a shouted “Nice tie, asshat!”Dalton Rev is on a mission, paid to find whoever murdered Wesley Payne, a popular boy who ended life hung upside down, like St. Anthony in chinos. To finger the perp, Rev navigates the tricky politics of cliques gone rabid, each with a sly moniker and a secret racket to boot: the Ginny Slims, the Face Bois, the Balls, the Plaths, the Rope-a-Dope Misanthropes, and one mealy-mouthed tail in a suit and Veritas wingtips.As the school registrar warns young Rev, “There’s a calm before the storm, but the storm is definitely coming.”“What’s that?” he snaps back. “Haiku?”“Rockers or jocks. A new fish like you would be smart to pick a side.”The side Dalton Rev picks is homicide, and the plot launches merrily into detention-room mayhem.You Killed Wesley Payneis pure delight to read, and clearly was a delight to write. Beaudoin plays the language like bee-bop. The fun is vertiginous. On the one hand, there’s a strong tang of period pulp (“Where’s the opera?” is slang for “What’s your hurry?”; “Take a sniff,” like the old, ubiquitous “Take a powder,” means “Leave quickly”); on the other hand, there are the idioms of new mean streets: blowshite and uddersuck. For someone who calls himself a Private Dick, language can be tricky.The dialogue is as funny as Rex Stout, and just as sharp and slap-happy as Hammett. The mystery is tangled--at times, bewilderingly so--but that’s hardly important, given the high-velocity acrobatics of these fiercely funny kids, riffing retreads of old stereotypes turned new. You may not care, in the end, who killed Wesley Payne, but you’ll want to make sure that Dalton Rev himself, vulnerable and harsh, wins the day and isn’t de-quicked and deep-sixed by his mysterious antagonist. Like Brick, but Nerf, this high school noir is sure to entertain.