Description

An urgent bequest directs waves of assault through the placid groves of academe in Joanne Dobson's third mystery to feature Professor Betty Pelletier.Still untenured, and consequently on unstable academic floor, feisty small Enfield University professor Pelletier sees himself going head-to-head with the citizen Edgar Allan Poe specialist, Elliot Corbin, an academic windbag of amazing dimensions who's lobbying to be hired for the much-desired and lately left Palaver Seat. Then when Karen gets a serendipitous bonanza in the shape of never-before-observed manuscripts and publications from the nineteenth-century poet Emmeline Foster, who's rumored to possess murdered himself for the love of Poe, Corbin is naturally set out.Subsequently, the harsh Corbin is stabbed to death in his house on Thanksgiving Evening. Karen posseses an airtight alibi, but additional suspects abound--in the mind of the ladies's studies program, who also pines for that Palaver Seat; to Visiting Poet Linda Birdwort, whose background with Corbin works out to be significantly longer (and deeper) than anybody had recognized; towards the constantly unhappy division assistant; to some youthful feminine adjunct teacher whose unbridled goal won't be denied.Then Karen's company is ransacked, and numerous the Emmeline Foster publications and verses are taken, therefore it appears more and more as though Corbin's demise might be inextricably entwined with the muse of his existence--poet of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. The unquestionably appealing Lieutenant Piotrowski is known as in, and, as previously, he solicits Betty's aid, concerning her once again in the tough job of examining her not-always-so-collegial colleagues.As she did in her first two widely-acclaimed books, Joanne Dobson utilizes her experienced expert's understanding of educational politics and her considerable expertise for complicated planning to make an amusing and eminently enjoyable entertainment.From the Hardcover version.