Killing Mr. Griffin
Killing Mr. Griffin (ISBN 0440945151) is a novel for young adults by Lois Duncan. It is about a group of teenage students at Del Norte who plan to kidnap their English teacher, Mr. Griffin.
Plot
Template:Spoilers Mr. Griffin is a strict and proper teacher who never accepts late homework. He is well-educated and wants his students to know more than what he does. Griffin is married and his wife is pregnant. Mark Kinney lives with his aunt and uncle, because his father died and his mother had a nervous breakdown and was taken away. He and his friends David (president of the high school's senior class) and Jeff (a basketball player) decide to kidnap Mr. Griffin as a prank to scare the teacher and "teach him a lesson" (presumably, in humility).
Susan McConnell, one of the students involved in the kidnapping plan, is a good student in Mr. Griffin's class. She engages him in conversation concerning an assignment after school. She walks with him to the school parking lot, where Mark, David, and Jeff kidnap Griffin. They drive him to a secret place in the mountains. Mark wants Mr. Griffin to beg them for his freedom, 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.
Except for Susan, the conspirators place Mr. Griffin in a grave. Susan does not go to help, because they are afraid she might have a nervous breakdown. Days later, Mr. Griffin’s body is found by a couple who are having a picnic; they inform the police.
David’s grandmother finds a 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. 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, infuriating David. The conspiracy unravels, and the police are contacted, their fates are never revealed. The novel ends with Susan's family telling her that Mark should be blamed for manipulating her along with the other students, because Mark is a psychopath.
Other media
Killing Mr. Griffin was adapted into a 1997 TV-movie.
A similar premise was Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999), which was originally titled "Killing Mrs. Tingle" before being changed due to pressures stemming from school violence incidents including the Columbine massacre.
External links
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