Killing Mr. Griffin
| Recent Killing Mr. Griffin book cover | |
| Author | Lois Duncan |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Suspense |
| Publisher | Little Brown |
Publication date | April 1978 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 243 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-316-19549-9 (first edition, hardback) Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
Killing Mr. Griffin is a novel for young adults by Lois Duncan. It is about a group of teenage students at Del Norte High School who plan to kidnap their strict English teacher, Mr. Griffin. The novel ranked number 33 on the American Library Association's list of 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000. [1]
The book was adapted to film in 1997, sharing the same title as the book.
Story
Brian Griffin is a strict and proper high school Great Literature teacher who never accepts late homework and is extremely tough on students, and gives projects every two days. His students want revenge, so a group of them decide to kidnap him. Mark Kinney is the most often singled out by Mr. Griffin, because a while ago Mark had been stealing papers from a college to use as a term paper. Mr. Griffin recognizes this paper and makes Mark repeat the class.
Mark lives with his aunt and uncle. He and his friends, David Ruggles (president of the high school's senior class), Jeff (a basketball player) and Betsy (the head cheerleader) decide to kidnap Mr. Griffin as a prank to scare the teacher and "teach him a lesson." Another teacher at their school, the young and easygoing Miss Dolly Luna, was kidnapped as a prank for her birthday, and had loved it - a fact that Mark uses, to convince the others that his idea is not totally outlandish.
Susan McConnell, one of the students involved in the kidnapping plan (acting as the decoy), is a good student in Mr. Griffin's class, but participates due to peer pressure, and partly as a result of a crush she has on David (which David was unaware of, but Mark had figured out). She engages her English teacher in conversation concerning a test that was taken after school. She walks with him to the school parking lot, where he is kidnapped by Mark, David, and Jeff. They drive him to a secret place in the mountains - an area so remote, that Mark is the only one who has used it, for outings with a former girlfriend. Mark wants Mr. Griffin to beg them for his freedom, as Mark had to beg to be able to retake Mr. Griffin's class when he was caught plagiarizing his term paper, but Mr. Griffin refuses, so Mark abandons him there, blindfolded and bound. When Susan and David return to check up on Mr. Griffin, they find him dead. They learn that Mr. Griffin had a condition named angina pectoris. Usually, he would have taken a pill to deal with the condition, but was unable to, being bound and having his pills destroyed by his captors, not knowing what they were for.
Except for Susan, they place Mr. Griffin in a shallow grave. David takes Mr. Griffin's class ring from Stanford, because it reminds him of his father. Susan does not go to help, because the group is afraid she might have a nervous breakdown. Mark concocts a story for Susan to use in the event that she is questioned. Griffin's wife Katie pays Susan a visit at her home, and Susan, using Mark's story, tells Mrs. Griffin that her husband was with another woman that evening. She also mentions that Mr. Griffin looked at his watch; however, the watch is actually at home broken, so he couldn't have been wearing it. An upset and angry Kathy accuses Susan of making the story up, and then leaves after it's clear she can go no further.
Days later, Mr. Griffin’s body is found by one of Mark's ex-girlfriends who was having a picnic with another guy; they inform the police.
David’s grandmother finds the ring belonging to Mr. Griffin. She mistakenly believes it belongs to David's father, who left David’s mother a long time ago. The ring's presence makes David's grandmother think that David’s father is alive and that David has already seen him. David's mother does not take his grandmother seriously, but the conspirators know they need to hide or destroy the ring since it is evidence of their crime. However, the grandmother will not return the ring to David until she sees her son (David's father).
Desperate, Mark kills David's grandmother (who refers to him as "the boy with the funky eyes") to get the ring. Susan then threatens to tell the police all that the group has done. Mark attempts to silence her by binding Susan and setting her house on fire. However, Susan's deliverance comes from Katie Griffin, who recognizes the Chevy in Susan's driveway as belonging to her dead husband when she sees Susan's house on fire. Though the car had been repainted, Mrs. Griffin recognizes the patched upholstery.
The conspiracy unravels, and the police are contacted, with all of those involved other than Susan facing varying degrees of criminal charges. The novel ends with Susan's family telling her that Mark should be blamed for manipulating her along with the other students, because he is psychopathic.