Grey Howl

January 20, 2014
Academic politics and the world of literary scholarship provide the background for Simon’s charming seventh Dulcie Schwartz mystery (after 2013’s Grey Dawn). Harvard grad student Dulcie, who’s been researching The Ravages of Umbria—a gothic romance—and the role of women in 18th-century society, is looking forward to a prestigious academic conference in Cambridge, Mass., at which she’s to present her first paper. On the eve of the conference, Marco Tesla, a visiting scholar, is found dead with a broken neck, having fallen from a balcony. Detective Rogovoy and Dulcie, with the help of three cats she communes with for assistance (one of whom, Mr. Grey, is deceased), determine that Tesla was murdered and try to uncover who, among the scholars vying for the position of department chair, is the culprit. Extracts from The Ravages of Umbria add to the fun. Agent: Colleen Mohyde, Doe Coover Agency.

January 15, 2014
More adventures in the dangerous groves of academe. Doctoral candidate Dulcie Schwartz is thrilled that she is getting the chance to read a paper she wrote on aspects of a gothic novel by a so-far-unidentified woman author who's the subject of her thesis. The literature conference is being held for the first time at a prestigious university in Cambridge, Mass. Dulcie has been pressed into service as a liaison and fixer of problems by her nervous department head, Martin Thorpe, who's fighting to keep his job. Dulcie would prefer Renee Showalter, a Canadian professor who's made available to her some highly interesting documents that will help in her research--at least, until she meets charismatic Paul Barnes, another candidate for Thorpe's job who hints that he'd like to work with Dulcie. When a paper that Stella Roebuck had planned to read vanishes from her computer, professor Roebuck, blaming her former lover Barnes, demands that Dulcie's boyfriend, Chris, a computer expert, find it. Then Marco Telsa, Roebuck's newest lover, falls off a balcony at an evening party, and the police suspect murder. Dulcie, who often seeks advice from the ghost of her deceased cat Mr. Grey and her new cat, Esme, is worried about Thorpe, who appeared to be drunk at the party, and Chris, who's acting strangely. Although she's survived several murder investigations (Grey Dawn, 2013, etc.), her immersion in all things gothic gives her a distinctive slant on sleuthing that puts her in peril. Though Dulcie's rather scatterbrained approach to sleuthing may put readers off, her seventh provides a plethora of suspects that keeps them guessing.

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.