ECHO

A death outside upscale student lodgings adjoining Belverton College throws new light on an eerily similar fatality 30 years ago.

Apart from his immediate family, whose limited means left them powerless against the might of the lordly Colliers, few people mourned Belverton freshman Michael James Paget when he was found drunk and choked in his own vomit outside Hardwicke House, one of the few buildings near the campus not to bear the Collier name. But the discovery of Belverton senior Brice Collier outside Hardwicke House, his half-naked body bearing signs of forcible and fatal intoxication, suggests that someone hasn’t forgotten the Paget case. Although Belverton students Shelby Ritter and Hailie Kenton, who found the body, tell a story that doesn’t quite add up for Det. Harriet Foster of Chicago Homicide, they’re obviously much too young to have been involved in Michael Paget’s death. And although Brice’s father, Sebastian Collier, can’t be bothered to return from Geneva to answer questions or identify the body, his suspected involvement in Mike’s decease—which he blandly maintains was an accident—makes him the last person who’d want to kill his wastrel son in revenge. While Harri and her squad scrounge for clues, Clark reveals that Brice was murdered by a cadre of four, headed and bankrolled by Ethan Paget, Mike’s kid brother. More interestingly, she hints more and more broadly that Ethan’s cohort aren’t the only people in the vicinity looking for revenge. By the time Harri claps the cuffs on the very last perp, in fact, you have to wonder if anyone in the Windy City has ever really forgotten about Michael Paget.

Not the best entry in this franchise, but fans caught up in all those felonies won’t complain.