The Fall Will Probably Kill You!

McMahon (Seaview Road) delivers an ambitious and thought-provoking if uneven campus novel wrapped in a metafictional political thriller. Georgetown University undergrad Teddy Thompson nurses a tortured crush on classmate Charlotte Pennington, the daughter of a senator. Teddy and Charlotte grew up together in Connecticut and remain friends, and Teddy uses their connection to get close to the senator, whom he hopes will help him with a career in politics. The senator becomes a mentor to Teddy, but Charlotte remains elusive, as her affections are reserved for their classmate Braden Edwards. Teddy’s narrative is broken up by drawn-out scenes with a pair of homicide detectives investigating a shooting death, and McMahon hints that the victim at the center of their case might be Braden, and that Teddy and the senator might be behind the death. For a while, McMahon spins his wheels with page-long descriptions of what the detectives have for breakfast and other quotidian matters. Eventually the thread extends to a provocative if underbaked twist about the nature of detective story tropes. Teddy is more dynamic, coming across like a Beltway Iago as he conspires with the senator in a far-fetched plot against Braden. There are flashes of insight buried within this shaggy dog story. (Self-published)