Shades of Grey

June 29, 2009
Simon's tepid brew of cat paranormal and academic chick lit, the first of a new series, may disappoint fans of her Theda Krakow mysteries (Probable Claws
, etc.). Dulcie Schwartz, a 26-year-old Harvard doctoral candidate living in Cambridge, Mass., mourns the death of her beloved cat, Mr. Grey. She's also worried about keeping her temp job until September's grant money kicks in. Nothing, however, prepares her for the stabbing death of her roommate, Tim Worthington, not even hearing the eerie warning of Mr. Grey's ghost before finding Tim: “I wouldn't go in, if I were you.” Tim, a playboy who enjoyed partying more than studying, had a bit of a drug problem that could be related to his murder. While Dulcie is a likable enough heroine, some may feel she should focus more on crime-solving than her thesis and dating. Others will hope to see more of Mr. Grey, whose ghostly manifestations are relatively few, in subsequent outings.

July 15, 2009
A graduate student turns sleuth when her roommate is murdered.

Dulcie Schwartz is down in the dumps. Her beloved cat Mr. Grey has died. Her regular housemate Suze has left town and stuck her with a sublet, a preppy jerk named Tim. Her dissertation in Gothic literature is going nowhere. And only a boring temp job allows her to make ends meet. Arriving home to find Tim stabbed to death with her carving knife is the last straw, especially as she'd ignored the ghostly voice of Mr. Grey warning her not to go back to her apartment. The cops think Dulcie may have stabbed Tim even though there are other suspects in the form of several girlfriends and Tim's brother Luke, a student at Stanford Law, believes that Tim may have been dealing drugs. Glimpses of Mr. Grey and messages from him lead Dulcie to doubt her sanity. She's suspected of computer hacking at work, and her love life is in a shambles. If she wants to prove herself innocent of murder and hacking and settle on a dissertation topic before she loses her grant, she'll have to get her act together, take a few tips from Mr. Grey and solve the crimes.

A slow kickoff for a new series by cat-happy Simon (Probable Claws, 2009, etc.). Fellow animal lovers will feel the paucity of feline lore, and mystery mavens are likely to find the plot a bit convoluted.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 15, 2009
Graduate student Dulcie Schwartz is working as a temp and renting a room to another student for the summer to make ends meet. When her roommate is murdered, Dulcie hears her dead cat's voice warning her about dangers. VERDICT This series launch by the author of the Theo Krakow series ("Cries and Whiskers") is for readers who like their feline cozies mixed with a touch of the paranormal. [See Prepub Mystery, "LJ" 5/1/09.]

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2009
Twentysomething Dulcie Schwartz is a doctoral student at Harvard, struggling to find a thesis topic, mourning her recently deceased cat Mr. Grey, and working a summer temp job. Then, one afternoon, she thinks she sees Mr. Grey and believes he warns her not to go home. When she enters her apartment, she finds her despised subletter dead with her knife in his chest. Mr. Grey, Dulcies mother informs her, is her spirit guide; thats fortunate because Dulcie could certainly use extraterrestrial help, seeing as she finds herself suspected of both murder and hacking into her computer system at work. Well paced and tightly plotted, Shades of Grey debuts a promising series from the author of the Theda Krakow mysteries (Probable Claws, 2009). With scholar Dulcie as the main character, and most of the action taking place on the Harvard campus and inside the Widener Library, it should appeal to a wide audience, including fans of both cat cozies and fiction that uses an academic frame story (Lauren Willigs The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, 2005).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)