Final Exam

Final Exam is a liberal arts noir novel, a gripping story of a series of murders at a small, elite liberal arts college in the Midwest. Told from three distinct points of view-those of the fusty college president, a wise-ass English professor, and an earnest campus security officer-Final Exam is a page-turner crafted by a skilled and knowing writer.

"Final Exam dazzles from the first page and intrigues from the first shrewd twist of its plot. It is a superb mystery novel...a superb evocation of a unique place at a dangerous time, and of people whose lives hang suddenly in the balance. The suspense is carefully and smartly calibrated, but what makes Final Exam singular is its tough and witty portrait of an academic community under siege both from a malign force outside it and from within, as its own insidious histories and bitter secrets threaten to destroy it as surely as the killer who moves like a shadow across the campus. Like some of my favorite movies, Final Exam uses a classic genre and twists it into something new and compelling and memorable."

—Martin Scorsese, Filmmaker

"P.F. Kluge, who documented the intricacies of life in a small liberal arts college with brilliance, insight and compassion in his classic nonfiction work Alma Mater, now proves he can do the same thing in a work of fiction. Final Exam is technically a mystery novel, but it is also a deft and gimlet-eyed look at the inner world of the liberal arts college, a place Kluge portrays as well as any author writing today."

—Paul Goldberger, Architecture Critic and Author of Up From Zero: Politics, Architecture and the Rebuilding of New York

"Final Exam has a double current of energy running through its radiant pages: the high suspense of a murder mystery and the jolt of fresh ideas-about identity and commitment, about the cultural dynamics and human embodiments of institutions, and about the aspirations and contradictions of higher education. Small towns and small colleges may be the setting, but Kluge illuminates a vast stretch of America by shining a fierce and loving light upon them."

—Ronald Sharp, Dean of the Faculty, Vassar College

Biggest Elvis

Part mystery, part love story, part mordant commentary on America's waning presence worldwide, this hugely entertaining novel tells the story of a trio of Elvis impersonators working out of a club called Graceland in Olongapo, Philippines.... Biggest Elvis revives and re-envisions the life of America's leading twentieth-century folk hero. In this edgy, evocative and compassionate novel, Kluge gives Elvis a second chance ... a second coming.

"A serious book as well as a very entertaining one."

—Richard Eder, The Los Angeles Times

"Kluge is a deeply talented writer. He can put a Presley act onstage and show us a whole world turned inside out."

—The Boston Sunday Globe

"Kluge has drawn a splendidly humane portrait of the Olongapo townspeople ... His sympathetic stories of the bar girls who make dates with the Graceland customers are a small Dickensian novel in themselves."

—The Los Angeles Times

"Kluge writes lyrically, whether he's describing the gaudy onstage triumphs of his Elvis trinity or the crushing hardships of life around the Subic Bay naval base. And he links the stages of Big E's life to what he sees as the phases of America's identity-a descent from vigorous pioneer nation to aging, swollen colossus ... [a] dreamy, melancholic tale of economic and pop-cultural imperialism."

—The New York Times Book Review