Schooled in Murder

May 12, 2008
An acrimonious English department faculty meeting at Chicago-area Grover Cleveland High leads to murder in Zubro's intriguing 12th Tom and Scott mystery (after 2006's Everyone's Dead but Us
). English teacher Tom Mason's troubles begin after he discovers the corpse of teacher Gracie Eberson, an eraser stuck in her mouth, in a supply room also occupied by two male teachers engaged in a sexual tryst. The guilty pair deny Tom's official report about their illicit activity, and an anonymous tip implicates Tom in Eberson's murder. When the dead body of another teacher turns up behind Tom's car, Tom turns sleuth. Tom's lover, Scott Carpenter, and such friends as Meg Swarthmore, Grover Cleveland's feisty librarian, and police officer Frank Rohde lend support. Zubro, a high school English teacher himself, invests this whodunit with sharp insights into what can happen when prejudice rules as well as timely lessons on educational chicanery.

June 1, 2008
Magnificent teachers may be asrare as hens teeth, but murdered teachers are a dime a dozen at suburban Chicagos Grover Cleveland High School, where English teacher and teachers union representative Tom Mason is under suspicion for killing two of his more colorful, cantankerous, and corrupt colleagues. As Tom tries to clear his name and find the real killer, he uncovers a school system teeming with scandals--adulterous affairs, high-stakes gambling, covert grade fixing, and insidious extortion--any one of which could have been the motive for murder. The deeper Tom probes into the facultys peccadilloes and transgressions, the greater their hostility against him, and their increased opposition quickly shifts Tom from probable suspect to potential victim. Aided, as always, by his husband, former big-league baseball star Scott Carpenter, and some well-placed moles among the administrative staff, Tom brings all the suspects together for a dramatic, and deadly, denouement. The prolific Zubros latestinstallment in his popular series featuring gay partners Tom and Scottshimmers with scintillating insider glimpses of academia run amok.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)