meticulous re-construction of the disappearance and death of college student by famous real life private eye William Dear
This is the true(-ish) story of a private detective who tracked down a college student who had gone missing in 1979, and uncovered a whole story about kids playing a kind of live-action Dungeons and Dragons. At least I think that's what it's about; I didn't get very far into the book because the author's voice is so incredibly annoying. I suspect this story is the inspiration for Rona Jaffe's book Mazes and Monsters, which was one of my favorite novels when I was in high school, after I saw the TV movie of it. :-)
From the back of the book:
Dear's book has all the elements of a good Ross MacDonald detective novel. First there's the missing boy. A shy homosexual youth with a history of drug abuse, Egbert was addicted to science fiction and the fantasy game Dungeouns & Dragons. Then there is author/private investigator Dear, who emerges in his own account as a kind of investigative Ereryman; a hard guy with a soft heart, single-minded in his quest to find Dallas Egbert...Dear immersed himself in Dallas Egberts world. He tried Dungeons & Dragons, experiencing a discomfiting merger of his personality into the role the game required him to play...He grew obsessed with the need to search Michigan State's nightmarish tunnels...
