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![[Hot Rocks]](pix/Hot-Rocks-93.jpg)
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Nick Hoffman, desperate to get tenure, has been saddled with a thankless task: coordinating a conference on Edith Wharton that will demonstrate how his department and his university supports women's issues. There's been widespread criticism that SUM is really the State University of Men. Problem is, he's forced to invite two warring Wharton societies, and the conflict between rival scholars escalates from mudslinging to murder. Nick's job and whole career are on the line unless he can help solve the case and salvage the conference. |
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From the book:
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Amused, I watched Devon Davenport, one of New York's biggest editors, hold rude court. He leaned back against the bar with a sneer on his wizened old face. Various professors drew closer, apparently trying to suck up to him, but all were brutally rebuffed as if he were a crime boss who'd never do a favor for even the most obsequious supplicant. I'm sure there were some men and women in the room who'd had their book proposals mockingly returned from him in the past. Academics often mistakenly think they can dash off a popular book and get themselves on the best-seller list--after all, how hard can it be? Loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, Davenport said, "Authors! They're all scum!" |
- Is vulgar literary taste
sufficient motive for murder? Actually, killing is too
kind for the vindictive scholars in Lev Raphael's
maliciously funny campus mystery The Edith Wharton
Murders.
Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
- Another fast, funny,
delicious mystery by Lev Raphael. Kept me guessing -- and
laughing -- right to the end.
Sparkle Hayter, author of Revenge of the Cootie Girls
- A savagely funny satire of
academic pretensions and posturings. Definitely on my
list of the year's best!
Dean James, manager of Murder by the Book and co-author of By a Woman's Hand
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Wharton link:
- The
Mount - Edith Wharton
Restoration
Restoring Edith Wharton's home in Lenox, Massachusetts.