School's Out (2007)

Middle school is hell — even in France. When a teacher is found dead outside his classroom window in an apparent suicide, 32-year-old Pierre Hoffman is tapped to fill in. Pierre soon learns of two other mysterious deaths linked to this class of oddly well-behaved 13-year-olds who speak like ''trainee semiotician[s].'' Christophe Dufossé effectively builds a sense of menace in School's Out, particularly in the run-up to a class bus trip to Normandy. Although Pierre's narration can be off-puttingly aloof (perhaps Shaun Whiteside's rather stilted translation is to blame), School's Out is the literary version of a citron pressé mouth-puckeringly tart and refreshing. B+