The Finishing School - Joanna Goodman

Written by Joanna Goodman
Read by Andi Arndt
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: HarperAudio
Release date: April 11, 2017
Duration: 08:55:09

How far would you go to uncover the truth?

One spring night in 1998 the beautiful Cressida Strauss plunges from a fourth-floor balcony at the Lycée Internationale Suisse with catastrophic consequences. Loath to draw negative publicity to the school, a bastion of European wealth and glamour, officials quickly dismiss the incident as an accident, but questions remain: Was it a suicide attempt? Or was Cressida pushed?

On the surface Kersti Kuusk is doing well, making a living as a novelist and living in Toronto with her husband, Jay. Beyond her successful facade, she’s in her mid-30s, struggling with infertility, and trying to cope with long-held insecurities. Plus she’s still haunted by her best friend’s mysterious fall from a fourth-floor balcony at their prestigious Swiss boarding school years ago. Then a letter arrives inviting her to speak at the school’s 100th anniversary celebration, followed by a letter from her dying former schoolmate Lille, which questions Cressida’s “accidental” fall. The letters catapult Kersti on a quest to track down her classmates and teachers who might be more forthcoming after all these years. As she digs deeper, everything indicates that the ledgers of the Helvetian Society, a secret but long-banned club at the school, hold the answers. The shocking truths that Kersti eventually uncovers lead her to a dangerous confrontation and some devastating realizations.

An un-putdownable read as clever as it is compelling; The Finishing School offers a riveting glimpse into a privileged, rarefied world in which nothing is as it appears.

VERDICT: Goodman’s novel alternates between the present and the 1990s, giving it the feel of both a coming-of-age-story and a literary mystery but ultimately culminating in an addictive read full of skillfully conveyed characters