Corfu has always been the pet theory for Shakespeare aficionados as the setting for the Tempest. There is very little to go by to come up with this theory. The bard was famous for taking a loan from any story he came across. Having certain names crop up in the play and on the island is no great clue. And fiction is fiction, there should be no earthly realm to be found.
As with all of Mary Stewart's mystery novels, the setting is as important as the protagonists. The story she spins this time is perfectly suited to misty Northumberland. The bluffs and double bluffs find a perfect expression in the Roman border situation, which isn't one anymore, but still is a major divider of mainland Britain. If you haven't yet been there, this book should give you the impetus to do so.
For once, this mystery book by Mary Stewart doesn't act as a travel guide extraordinaire at the same time. The story is too contained within the space of private properties, with good reason. Of Stewart's mystery books I have read, this one is the darkest and most obscure visible in title and storyline both. But follow me to Lake Geneva's French side to have a good look around.
Presenting High School life in any form is fraught with danger; either authors presume too much knowledge about how its social mechanisms work or they lose themselves in the interactions that have little or nothing to do with the story they are telling. This book falls into the first category; and that's not the worst of its shortcomings
