Edgar Award Best Novel Winner

The Chatham School Affair

by Thomas H. Cook

Summary

An elderly New England lawyer looks back on the events of 1926, when a new art teacher arrived at his father's school and set in motion a chain of passion and tragedy that destroyed several lives. Cook unspools the story slowly through memory and regret, withholding the full truth until a devastating final revelation. The novel is admired for its elegiac tone and its meditation on guilt that lingers across a lifetime.

Historical Context & Significance

This was the novel that won Thomas H. Cook the Edgar Award for Best Novel.