Michael McCulloch, Cold Lessons

Cold Lessons

Michael McCulloch

Five Star, January 2007, $25.95

ISBN: 1594145247

In 1969 in Garden City, Montana Gil Strickland, an idealist, was named teacher of the year, who made his classroom a fun learning experience. Eighteen years later, and almost three decades as a teacher has destroyed his ideals, as he is a baby sitter, not an instructor; coming to work at Porte l'Enfer High School sober quite an ordeal. His lack of caring endangers his job, as Vice Principal Flannel warns him to shape up or else.

The school is shaken when cheerleader Kristen Swales dies under the influence of drugs by crashing her car. Teacher Dick Simsonsen, who has always placed Gil on a pedestal, tells him he was having an affair with Kristen, which shocks the alcoholic, but fits his belief that moral decay is the norm. However, when Kristen's friend Maria sneezes and blood shoots out of her nose, something inexplicable inside Gil resurfaces: a need to help his students. He begins to investigate the drug cartel preying on the local students, over the objection of his travel writer wife of over three decades Lolita, but soon finds himself wondering if the red pen is mightier than the sword, make those guns.

COLD LESSONS starts off as a well written, gloomy, deep character study of how far an idealistic caring person can fall when the optimistic armor is destroyed. Towards the middle of the intense storyline, Gil converts into a born again, needing to save the world one student at a time. However, the latter half of the storyline is more an amateur sleuth thriller, though the audience will still have some insight into the crusader, who as he did in his youth, is willing to risk all for his beliefs.