The main protagonists are Chad — a shy American exchange student — and the charismatic Jolyon, who become friends at Oxford and also gather in Emilia, Dee, Mark and Jack.

The remaining two members, Chad and Jolyon meet up again 14 years later in New York to decide on the winner.... Dennis Drabelle writing in The Washington Post enjoyed the premise: "A circle of bright college friends who feed on one another's cleverness and trump one another's insults until the steady diet of cynicism ends in tragedy - this is the stuff of two fine first novels: Donna Tartt's The Secret History (1992) and, now, Christopher J. Yates's Black Chalk.

and concludes that "Like a locked-room mystery, a boarding-school or college novel reduces the world to a compartment filled with quasi-incestuous conflict.

"[3] Jason Sheehan in NPR praises Yates "who writes like he has 30 books behind him; like he's been doing this so long that lit games and deviltry come to him as natural as breathing...This is the smart summer thriller you've been waiting for.

Parts of this story are downright unrealistic, you won’t get much character development, and key elements are left unexplained, but if you’re in this for the game, you’ll leave satisfied.