TROPIC
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It's winter, but academic madness is in full bloom at the State University of Michigan. Untenured professor Nick Hoffman is desperately trying to keep out of the way as three senior professors battle to be the chair of his department. They all hate each other and all demand his support in an atmosphere of intense crisis. The situation implodes when an emergency meeting turns the department upside down. Nick is left desperate to make a quick getaway, so his partner Stefan suggests an idyllic week at a Caribbean Club Med. The island of Serenity, however, proves to be anything but serene. Once again, Edith Wharton scholar Nick Hoffman, who grew up in New York City and was never even mugged, finds himself face-to-face with murder.
Lev talks about Tropic of Murder on East Lansing Public Radio
From the book:
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I was a nice Jewish boy who had gone astray. No, I wasn't an alcoholic, or a convert -- or even a neo-conservative. My errant path was criminal; that is, I had unfortunately been involved in some crimes at the State University of Michigan (SUM). I'd grown up in New York City when it was dirty and dangerous, and in my mind, Michigan had always seemed bucolic, pristine. Yet despite never having been mugged in New York, or even witnessed a mugging, in scenic Michigan I'd encountered murder not once but several times. I'd helped solve the murder cases, not that it was remotely my job to do so. Though I loved reading mysteries and was getting ready to teach a mystery course, I was basically a composition professor, so crimes against the English language were supposed to be my beat. And despite my unexpected forensic success at SUM, the administrators weren't remotely grateful, because I'd been part of news stories that threw the mud of bad publicity at our particular ivory tower. Like vampires, universities don't do so well in bright sunlight. Whether the administrators liked it or not, though, and whether I did, I had stumbled into becoming a middle-aged amateur sleuth, the kind of figure you tend to find only in novels. Mystery novels, at that. |
Reviews:
- Beguiling and funny.
The Washington Post - Wildly hilarious... lyrical writing.
The Oakland Press - Author Lev Raphael knows quite a lot about the dismal swamps of academe and the sunlit beaches of the Caribbean. The time he has obviously spent in these places make it possible for him to write vividly -- and wittily -- about both, with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek.
Lambda Book Report - Enjoyable reading for those who like their mysteries on the light
side.
Jewish Book World - I've developed a crush on Lev Raphael's witty, literate, cheerfully
satirical Nick Hoffman mysteries. Raphael writes with cynical glee about the internecine blood-letting of academic politics, which is one of the delights of this book.
Books to Watch Out For - Witty and biting insights into academia... Longtime Raphael fans
should enjoy his latest crime novel as well as newcomers; lovers of
witty academic mysteries won't want to miss it!
Lansing State Journal - This is the sixth book in this series; I have read and enjoyed them all, including this one. The description of the departmental in-fighting is well done and is, I believe, very true to life. The characters are deftly portrayed, with complexity and humor. The description of the mise en scène on the island is beautifully original. I enjoyed the literary quotations, and the apt choice of titles for each section of the story. As befits a former college
professor, as Lev Raphael is, the grammar is impeccable, an increasingly rare happening these days. I also very much appreciated the cast of characters that was included -- I just wish more publishers would return to this once common nicety. This was indeed a most enjoyable and entertaining mystery.
I Love a Mystery - In one of Raphael's last two mysteries, there was no murder for the first two-thirds of the book, and in the most recent, there was no corpse. Now a corpse doesn't show until past the two-thirds mark, and whether it bespeaks murder or accident is uncertain. Raphael's writing, however, suggests a deepening gloom and impending trouble both in the wintry groves of academic Michigan and the sun-kissed tropics of Serenity, the resort to which Nick Hoffman and his partner, Stefan, flee from political infighting at the venal
university. Raphael keeps us turning pages with mouthwatering descriptions of buffets and a paradise brimming with cheerful attendants, and even without a corpse, he ratchets up tension with rumors of ghosts and some very substantial fellows threatening to trade blows. Some mystery fans may feel let down by the resolution, which flouts genre expectations, while others may cheer it and
welcome Raphael's innovativeness.
Booklist - Here in the Carolinas the temperature has dropped to a frigid 47
degrees, with the nights getting well below freezing. This is not
why I came south, so I am doing the sensible thing and reading warm,
sunny, island-related fiction.
To those of you with similar thoughts of fantasy island escapes, I suggest you take a trip with Lev Raphael's Nick Hoffman, who has fled the frigid Michigan winter for the warmer and more wonderful world of Club Med. After enduring a shake-up at his university that must have registered 9.8 on the Richter scale of academic antics, Nick and his partner Stefan decide to take a break from the vicious inter-departmental squabbling and go on a long overdue vacation. Nick, in particular needs some down time. He's been a magnet for trouble at the school and this has not endeared him to the other professors—with the possible exception of one controversial woman with both the name and body of a goddess—Juno Dromgoole. It's the body that's been worrying Nick lately; the fact that he's thinking about Juno at all is NOT sitting well with his long-unquestioned identity as a gay man in a long time and very stable relationship. He's also questioning his work, his career, and his apparent affinity for landing in the middle of murder cases. A Caribbean vacation is obviously just what he needs.
But Nick and Stefan aren't on the island twelve hours before they discover that trouble has come along as an uninvited guest. A graduate student named Peter de Jonge, who had approached Nick earlier in the year to investigate a family problem, (Nick, being Nick, hedged beautifully), just happens to have ties to the same Club Med resort, and "just happens" to be there at the same time. Nick might be forgiven for feeling a little manipulated and paranoid. He also might be forgiven for feeling more than a little curious about this so-called "family problem". Then, of course, someone gets killed.
One of the things I like most about the Nick Hoffman series is that Nick never easily adjusts to his apparent talent for solving murder cases. In fact, he never adjusts to the idea of murder at all—it remains a traumatic and tragic event for him—not a puzzle to be solved, not a situation where he feels compelled to swoop in to find the truth-but a tragedy enacted for often the most tawdry of reasons, with himself a most unwilling instrument of justice. It is only his offbeat sense of humor, and some sound emotional support from Stefan, that allows him to weather the various cases that have landed at his feet. I started reading the series at first because of its well-heralded satire of academia. I am a survivor of the brethren of the ivory towers myself, and found the biting portrayal of Hoffman's "SUM" to be hilarious. But I kept reading the series because I liked the characters and the pacing of the stories. A little satire goes a long way with me, but great characters will always bring me back to the book. And it is the characters, more than the satire that are most in evidence in"Tropic of Murder", since Nick is away from his usual hallowed halls. The only thing really sacred at a Club Med resort is the quality of the tequila in your margarita.
A fast read, with many funny moments; Tropic of Murder is a good way to get you started on your own fantasy Caribbean vacation.
Nicki Leone, Manager, Bristol Books
Advance Praise for Tropic of Murder:
- Funny, cynical and bittersweet, the new Nick Hoffman mystery will be eagerly pounced on by Raphael's many fans.
Lauren Henderson, author of the Sam Jones mysteries - It's a delight to see a series character continue to develop as
Nick Hoffman does in this funny, literate and touching new novel in which Hoffman tries to escape the tensions of university politics and sails right
into murder. Grand fun!
Barbara D'Amato, author of On My Honor - Lev Raphael has done it again -- another mordantly witty mystery
featuring everyone's favorite acerbic English professor, Nick
Hoffman. Relax with Tropic of Murder and take an entertaining,
exotic Club Med vacation without even having to get out of your
favorite chair.
Dean James, author of Decorated to Death