Killing Mr. Griffin
Lois Duncan
 Brian Griffin is a high school English/literature teacher who never accepts late homework and is demanding of his students. After he gives out F's to a group of students who turn in papers late, the students—the "popular" crowd—decide to get revenge by kidnapping him. The group of friends includes Mark Kinney, the mastermind of the "prank", David Ruggles, president of the high school's senior class, Jeff Garrett, a basketball player, and Betsy Cline, the head cheerleader. Mr. Griffin recognized a paper Mark plagiarized, with help from his college-age girlfriend, as being from the college at which Mr. Griffin had worked as an assistant professor. Jeff obeys Mark, despite his parents' disapproval of Mark, and does things for the group like driving them around and often paying for their meals. Betsy is a spoiled and manipulative, but popular, girl, who has a crush on Mark. David is working toward a state university scholarship, which is grade-based; the previous English teacher, Dolly Luna, gave him As, but Mr. Griffin gives him Cs. David faces further pressures, as he needs ultimately to help support his family, since his mother is in a dead-end secretarial job, his nagging and lazy grandmother lives with them, and his father is out of the picture. The students take Mr. Griffin to a spot in the mountains so remote, that Mark is the only one who has used it, for outings with his former girlfriend, Lana Turnbolt. Betsy arrives in the parking lot after the boys have left with Mr. Griffin, thanks to a speeding ticket. Susan was supposed to ride with Betsy, but doesn't want any part in the scheme and Betsy leaves without her. The group taunts Mr. Griffin, telling him to beg for his life or they would kill him. They take Mr. Griffin's medicine and destroy it. Mark tells Mr. Griffin to beg or they will abandon him there overnight; Mr. Griffin refuses, so the students leave. Susan defies Mark and begs David to go check on Mr. Griffin. The two find him dead, as a result of heart failure from not taking his medication, and they hurry to find the other students. Mark decides to cover up the death instead of going to the police. Mr. Griffin's wife goes to the police the next day, because her husband has not returned home. A police officer pulls Susan from class to question her, because she was the last person to see Mr. Griffin alive to their knowledge. Mark meets her in the hallway before she reaches the office and instructs Susan on what to tell the police: Mr. Griffin spent the whole conference looking at his watch and left with a pretty woman. Everyone except for Susan heads to the mountains and they bury Mr. Griffin. Jeff repaints the car gray, telling his parents that he's fixing a friend's car. He and Betsy drive it to the airport and wipe the fingerprints from the steering wheel. Susan does not help, because the group is afraid she might have a nervous breakdown. Betsy, who has a crush on Mark, resents Betsy's role in disposing of the evidence, and is jealous that Mark is spending so much time with a plain girl like Susan. Kathy Griffin visits Susan's home, upset because she believes that Susan lied in her report to the police, as Mr. Griffin couldn't have been wearing his watch that day, because it was at home, broken. She asks Susan to contact her if Susan remembers anything more. Days later, Mark's ex-girlfriend, Lana, has a picnic with her fiancee at the secret place in the mountains. The couple discovers Mr. Griffin’s medicine bottle. Informing the police, they also mention there was a patch of dirt that looked like it had been recently uprooted. The police investigate, and find Mr. Griffin's body buried in the hole. Brian Griffin's murder is all over the news. David’s grandmother finds Mr. Griffin's ring that David stole, but believes it belongs to David's father, and that David has been secretly meeting with his father. 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 gets to meet with David's father. David's grandmother is killed, a neighbor referring to the killer suspect as a "boy in a brown sweater." When David learns that she is dead, he is overcome with grief and takes no further part in the plot. Susan makes the connection, knowing that Mark has a brown sweater he wears all the time, and that Mark would stop at nothing to get what he needed - in this case, the ring. Susan threatens to tell the police all that the group has done. Mark orders Jeff and Betsy to bind Susan and they leave. Mark tells Susan what really happened to his father - that he set their house on fire and killed his father. Susan realizes that he's going to do the same to her. He sets her curtains on fire and Susan realizes he intends to do the same to her. Miraculously, Susan is saved by Kathy Griffin, who recognizes her husband's Chevy in Susan's driveway when she sees Susan's house on fire. Though the car had been repainted, the gray color can't be made out in the dark, and Mrs. Griffin recognizes the patched upholstery. The conspiracy unravels with all of those involved facing varying criminal charges, except for Susan who is granted amnesty in exchange for her testimony at Mark's three murder trials. The novel ends with Susan's mother telling her that Mark will be blamed for manipulating her along with the other students, because he has been diagnosed as a psychopath.