Death Without Tenure

October 19, 2009
Agatha-finalist Dobson's sixth mystery to feature English professor Karen Pelletier (after 2003's The Maltese Manuscript
) earns a passing grade. Karen is up for the sole open tenure spot in her department at Massachusetts's Enfield College, but the department chairman is championing her underqualified Native American colleague, Joe Lone Wolf, which sends Karen into a dither. She also worries about her boyfriend's deployment to Iraq and her daughter's jaunt to Nepal. After someone slips Joe a fatal overdose of what may be peyote, she becomes the prime murder suspect. Plenty of other suspects emerge from the stereotypical cast of faculty and students, as Dobson trots out a plague of academic bugaboos, including drugs, false credentials, plagiarism, faculty in-fighting and hate crimes. When Karen stops dithering and starts playing detective, things heat up quickly.

November 15, 2009
Going up for tenure turns out to be only the second biggest strain on professor Karen Pelletier's life.

Each department at Enfield College is restricted to a single tenure appointment this year, and the English faculty must choose between promoting a colleague who's published two books and a slew of scholarly articles and a Native American who never even finished his dissertation but argues that he should be judged on his"speakings" rather than his writings. Karen seethes as Ned Hilton, the English department's new chair, indicates his preference for Joseph Lone Wolf. Soon enough, however, Karen's problems are alleviated. Joe is no longer her unstoppable rival for the promotion but a corpse, and she's no longer the underdog but a leading suspect in his murder. Threatened with arrest by Lt. Neil Boylan, who has it in for her sweetie, Lt. Charlie Piotrowski (off in Iraq with National Guard), Karen wonders forlornly,"Would I ever get tenure after that?" The mystery is a trifle—Karen comes across the essential clue quite by accident at the 11th hour—but the skewering of identity politics and political correctness is real enough, even if the ending is just a little pat.

Karen's sixth case (Cold and Pure and Very Dead, 2000, etc.) has everything you'd expect from an academic mystery—civilized dialogue, literary allusions, venal administrators, miasmal paranoia—and not a smidgen more.

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

October 1, 2009
While up for tenure at New England's exclusive Enfield College, Karen Pelletier finds out that the committee has already decided to choose Joe Lone Wolf as the sole recipient. When he is murdered, Karen is the prime suspect. VERDICT This sixth series title (after "The Maltese Manuscript") shows off Dobson's command of feeding readers small clues that lead them in circles until the solution is revealed. Fans of academic mysteries will savor this one.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2009
Professor Karen Pelletier is preparing to fulfill her dream of a tenured position in the English department of Enfield College, a prestigious New England institution. As she assembles her dossier, she learns that her rival for the chair, Native American professor Joseph Lone Wolf, has died of a peyote overdose. His minority status gave him an advantage and puts Karen at the top of the suspect list. A homicide detective with a grudge against her cop boyfriend, Lieutenant Charlie Piotroski, who is away serving in the National Guard in Iraq, makes sure that she stays on the A-list. Meanwhile, the petty squabbles of academia rage as the politically correct chair of the department and the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Whiteness Studies argue over the course list, and two of Karens favorite students, a Muslim woman and a coal-miners son, get caught up in the squabble. Dobson, who teaches at Fordham University, provides an amusing and accurate view of academia with her au courant plot and colorful characters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)