Part of Death on Demand, book 5
First published 1991
Annie Laurance leaves her mystery bookstore behind to teach a class on detective fiction's greatest female authors at Chastain Community College. She expects to discuss Agatha Christie and her literary peers, but the campus holds darker secrets than any novel. A scandal breaks in the student newspaper, triggering a suicide and two brutal murders. Annie must transform from teacher back into detective. Her husband Max Darling, a private investigator, joins the hunt for answers. Together they navigate a faculty riddled with suspects. A secretly alcoholic advertising professor lurks in the shadows. A predatory instructor trades grades for sexual favors. Nearly every colleague possessed the means and opportunity to commit murder. Annie gets dubious assistance from three amateur sleuths: her eccentric mother-in-law, an addled local socialite, and a Christie devotee. The investigation reveals that academic life breeds its own special brand of hatred and revenge. Annie discovers that solving real murders requires more than classroom theories about fictional crimes.
Genres: mystery, crime, detective, cozy-mystery, academia, amateur-sleuth
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: amateur-detective, found-family
Setting: Chastain Community College
Period: 20th-century
382 pages · Hardcover · John Curley & Assoc
Content warnings: suicide