The Academy

Perfect for fans of Carol Goodman’s The Lake of Dead Languages.

Many years ago, Ida Rossi, now a journalist in Stockholm, left the Axelson Academy under a cloud. Axelsons, a prestigious boarding school where tradition and loyalty come before… well, everything.

Now, Ida must reluctantly return to the isolated lakeside school deep in the pine forests of western Sweden, to report on the tragic deaths of two teenage boys who were found brutally murdered on campus some months before. Will her fraught mind cope with being back in the place she has worked so hard to forget?

Once back at Axelsons, Ida is met with suspicion by both students and staff, and everyone at the school seem more interested in keeping the peace and quelling rumours that threaten the school’s stellar reputation, rather than helping to find out who murdered the two boys. A convenient scapegoat in the shape of a Polish caretaker has been found, though his guilt is far from proven. When Ida’s cabin is attacked one night it seems that her reporting might take a dangerous turn.

As she becomes increasingly drawn into the psychological mind-games of the equally arrogant students and dismissive teachers, Ida’s own traumatic memories from the school are brought back to the surface, threatening to derail both her professional and personal life.

How far is The Academy willing to go to keep its reputation, and how far is Ida willing to go to get her reputation back?

THE ACADEMY is an evocative suspense novel with a touch of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects in the exhilarating setting of an elite preparatory school deep in the woods, where it’s easy to wander off the trail and find yourself lost and utterly alone. THE ACADEMY is Karin Wik’s debut.