Death With Dostoevsky

February 1, 2019
Hyde's third entry in her Crime with the Classics series (after Arsenic with Austen, 2016, and Bloodstains with Bront�, 2017) this time pays homage to Agatha Christie. Widow Emily Cavanaugh, on sabbatical from teaching literature at Reed College, is hosting her first Windy Corner Writers' Retreat before Christmas in the Victorian mansion she inherited from her great aunt Beatrice in a small Oregon coastal town. But her six guests include two clunkers: rude memoirist Dustin Weaver and a gate-crashing writer of lurid paperbacks pen-named Cruella Crime, who has harmed two of the other guests and is blackmailing another. Winter storms leave roads too icy for travel, so the group is isolated when Cruella is found dying from cyanide put in a bottle of amaretto given to Emily as a gift. Sheriff Luke Richards, who has repeatedly proposed to Emily, struggles to overcome his jealousy of her instant warm friendship with guest Oscar Lansing when there's another murder attempt. So a confrontation is arranged, with Luke taking the Hercule Poirot role, to lay out the crimes and name the killer. Another winning cozy, with love finally prevailing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

November 15, 2019
Returning to her college to do a month of research into Dostoevsky, professor and amateur sleuth Emily Cavanaugh finds herself involved with murder again (following Cyanide with Christie, 2019). The victim, Professor Taylor Curzon, preyed on her male students, luring one into her bed each semester by using grades as her lever. Her latest target: Daniel Razumov, with whom Emily is sharing a library desk and a research subject. But Daniel, who loves fellow student Svetlana Goldstein, spurned Curzon, who was found in her office with her head bludgeoned by a statuette belonging to Daniel. There is no shortage of those with a motive to do Curzon harm, however, including division head Richard McClintock; Taylor's would-be ex, Douglas; and lawyer Saul Goldstein, Svetlana's father, furious over an unfair grade Curzon gave his daughter. Yet it's Daniel who is charged with the murder, prompting Emily to work to defend the young man she has come to admire. In her fourth Crime with the Classics entry, Hyde effectively blends romance and mystery, delivering a suitably satisfactory ending to a winning campus cozy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)