Product Description

Is it mayhem or a faculty meeting? At the State University of Michigan in Michiganapolis, you can't always tell. But what you can be sure of is that tenure-hungry assistant professor Nick Hoffman is going to find himself involved in another murder investigation, even though he's been warned by university officials not to cause any more bad publicity for SUM. Written with literate style and grace, this third Nick Hoffman mystery gives the grand tradition of Kingsley Amis and David Lodge some very American twists. As Val McDermid says: "Lev Raphael's lacerating wit fillets the fatted calves of academe, roasts them with the hot breath of satire , then serves them up in the sauciest of mysteries."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1979916 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Amazon.com
Studying at the (fictional) State University of Michigan can be murder--at least in Lev Raphael's brittle, bright, and brash books about Nick Hoffman.

Hoffman teaches in the university's EAR (English, American Studies, Rhetoric) department and is very popular with his students. However, he has just turned 40 and is seriously worried about getting tenure. Also, his supervisors tend to view him as an under-published scholar, and, with some justification, a walking crime zone. The truth is that Nick attracts murder like a magnet. This time out, a student named Jesse Benevento--son of a history professor--is stabbed to death before Nick's very eyes during a campus riot. Nick and his novelist lover, Stefan Borowski, are sucked into a case that turns even uglier when a second murder occurs. As Nick struggles to solve the murders, his colleagues whine and bicker, a graduate student stalks him, and more violence erupts on campus.

If you like the way Raphael puts the camp into campus, his two previous titles, The Edith Wharton Murders and Let's Get Criminal, are both available in paperback. --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly
If Nick Hoffman ever gets the tenure he craves at the State University of Michigan, the body count could be staggering. Raphael's latest is just the third in this bright series (after 1997's The Edith Wharton Murders), and already the campus is littered with corpses. Hoffman, who has just turned 40, teaches in the university's EAR (English, American Studies, Rhetoric) department and is very popular with his studentsAalthough somewhat less so with his supervisors, who understandably view him as a crime magnet. Nick might not be as cool a crime solver as Kate Fansler, the Harvard prof star of Amanda Cross's brainy mysteries, but he's refreshingly open about his sexual preference (gay), his religion (Jewish) and his lack of reverence for the world of academia. (Talking about a campus crime wave, he says, "Assaults were up, bicycle thefts were up, and more flashers were reported in the library. As a bibliographer, I found that particularly depressing, because it was bound to give students the wrong idea about research.") When a vindictive student named Jesse Benevento is stabbed to death during a mini-riot, Hoffman and his novelist lover, Stefan Borowski, are plunged into a darkly amusing diversion involving French fiction (a novel by Benjamin Constant plays an important role) and professional and personal jealousies. This is sneaky, subversive funAthe perfect read to cut a class for.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Amateur sleuth and college professor Nick Hoffman (The Edith Wharton Murders, St. Martin's, 1997) witnesses a sudden campus melee that results in the murder of a department head's son. His desire to investigate may prevent him from making tenure next year, especially if any further scandal attaches to him. And there's always his failure to have published anything recently. Departmental jealousies, campus violence and racism, and Nick's 15-year relationship with Stefan provide ample grist for the author's often witty insight and make his fictional town of "Michiganapolis" a very happening place. Recommended.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.