Part of Virgil Flowers, book 12
First published 2019
Virgil Flowers arrives at a state university where two academic departments have turned scholarly disagreement into open war. The conflict centers on fundamental questions of science and medicine, with each side pushing their positions to extreme limits. What started as intellectual debate has devolved into something approaching madness among otherwise rational professors. When a prominent and combative scholar turns up dead, Virgil must navigate the toxic atmosphere of academic politics to find a killer. The detective discovers that highly educated people can become functionally insane when their deepest beliefs are challenged. Among the passionate zealots who populate both camps, someone has crossed the line from ideological fervor to murder. Virgil faces the challenge of separating a murderer from the merely unhinged as he works through a case where intelligence and madness walk hand in hand.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective, academic
Vibes: dark, emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, investigation, toxic-relationship
Setting: State University
372 pages · Hardcover · G.P. Putnam's Sons
Content warnings: death, murder, violence