Professor Karen Pelletier is up for tenure in the English department at New England’s exclusive Enfield College. Then her rival for the one tenured spot, Professor Joseph Lone Wolf, whose ethnicity gives him minority-preference status, is found dead. Karen, first on the list of suspects, is harassed by a homicide cop with a grudge against Karen’s boyfriend, Lieutenant Charlie Piotrowski. Meanwhile, political passions rage on campus, and two of Karen’s favorite students—Khalida Ahmed, a hijab-wearing Muslim, and Hank Brody, a coal-miner’s son on full scholarship—are caught up in the furor.
Without the presence of her beloved Charlie, now serving in Iraq, will Karen be able to survive the investigation, protect her students, and find a permanent niche in the world of academia? And what if the killer feels the need to strike again?
Joanne Dobson, a former professor of English at Fordham University, is the author of the Professor Karen Pelletier mystery series. The first book in the series, Quieter Than Sleep, was nominated for an Agatha Award in 1997 for Best First Novel, and in 2001 the adult readers division of the New York Library Association named her Noted Author of the Year, being the writer whose books they most enjoyed recommending to their patrons.
Christine Williams is a singer and actor based in Ashland, Oregon. Her performance credits include productions at regional theaters and on concert stages across the country and around the world, from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Barbican Centre in London to the Aspen Music Festival and the Grotowski Institute in Poland.