likeSet in and around colleges and universities, the 17 new stories & one reprint in this top-notch anthology explore the forbidding side of academia. As Block notes in his droll introduction, each of the varied, well-told tales is “as individual as fingerprints.” Among the standouts are David Morrell’s deviousRequiem for a Homecoming,”in which two alumni cast suspicion on each other while debating a 20-year-old murder; Rankin’s rivetingThe Reasoners, concerning the cover-up of a murder at a secret society in an ancient British university; & Farrel Coleman’s chillingAn Even Three, about a psychopath at a liberal arts college. Elsewhere, themes veer from  rivalry, rape, & survival of the fittest, to plagiarism, academic ghostwriting, & unsavory alternative employment beyond the ivy-covered walls. Creepy oddities include King’s tale of heroism,That Golden Way, A.J. Hartley’s supernaturalRounded with a Sleep, and Hamilton’s superlativeWriting Maeve Dubinsky, about the appropriation of another person’s work.Crime fiction fans won’t want to miss this exemplary compilation.In recent years, colleges & universities have become known for their “trigger warnings” & “safe spaces”—but as the 18 authors who penned stories for this powerful new anthology can tell you, there's plenty of danger still lurking behind the stolid stonework, leather-bound volumes, & thickets of ivy. Award-winning editor Block has assembled a Who's Who of literary luminaries & turned them loose on the world of academia, where petty rivalries & grand betrayals inflame relations btw professors & students, deans & donors. From Rankin to Lansdale, McGuire to Morrell, each author reveals the dark truths and buried secrets that make institutions of higher learning such ahotbed of controversy. You'll encounter plagiarism, sexual misconduct, &brutal competition—not to mention secret societies, cover-upsof murders and one near-future course study that