Crash Course

I initially discovered Kathryn Johnson earlier this year when I read her young-adult thriller Winterkill, originally published by Avon in 1991. I enjoyed the novel, leading me to place the author on my radar to find more of her works. Johnson, who used the pseudonym Nicole Davidson, wrote over 40 published novels and was nominated for the Agatha Award. I located plenty of her books and chose her 1995 book Crash Course to read along with a fellow Booktuber named Bryan from Bad Taste Books. 

The plot is rather elementary, leaving the focus to be more of a character study. Eight Maryland high school students are forced to participate in a group SAT study with a teacher named Porter. But, this isn't any normal scholastic study group. Instead, Porter, with parental consent, takes these eight kids to a rural house miles from civilization. The house, sitting on the shore of Deep Creek Lake, will be the students' home for a few nights over Thanksgiving break. Here's the personalities that clash on this mandatory meeting of the minds:

Kelly – protagonist, in love with a student athlete named Jeff and best friend to her neighbor Brian.
Paula – Kelly's rival, the girlfriend to Brian, jealous rager.
Chris – jock and bully, homicidal.
Jeff – secretly loves Kelly, goes with the flow.
Nathan – motorhead biker and food junkie.
Isabel – Native-American mystic and all-around introvert.
Angel – the group's goth witch.
Brian – pal to Kelly, hardworking student, bound for college.

As the kids arrive and settle in, small alliances begin to form. But, the mystery begins when Brian disappears in the lake. The kids begin to question each other on where Brian is, who may have had a hand in his demise, and what to do next. These suspicious increase once Porter leaves to find help. But, when another student is found stabbed, the need to survive the coming days becomes the most prevalent plot point.

By 1991, the slasher film market had reached a pinnacle of success. Johnson hones in on some of the genre's most intriguing tropes – a camp killer, teens in peril, the clashing of raging personalities, and the ultimate guessing game of the murderer's identity. While the third-person narration consistently flips among the characters, the most dominant is Kelly. She's mature, daring, and makes good decisions when facing adversity. She's also the one with the most motivation to discover the whereabouts of Brian's body. It was fun to join her on the search for motives.

Kelly and two other characters from this book appear in the sequel, Crash Landing. 

Get Crash Course HERE.