I like this series about a working-class girl who becomes a college professor at an elite New England school a lot. This isn't my favorite in the series simply because I am not hot on having to dig into old mysteries to solve current ones. Nevertheless, it is a good story with other story lines as well and I recommend it to anyone tired of the same-ole, same-ole.

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A mystery set at a prestigious New England college, The Northbury Papers sees Professor Karen Pelletier (also of the book Quieter than Sleep)involved in a murder investigation. I am not normally a huge fan of the mystery genre, this book made me rethink that stand. The use of the world of academe with its cutthroat rules and plots involving staff, students, tenure, and publishing was unique and intriguing. I couldn't put this book down and had to read Joanne Dobson's other book also.

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This is the second in a series of six "modern mysteries of academic proportions," to quote one reviewer's compliment*. The protagonist is a PhD at an elite New England private college, whose position in academic life belies her roots as a feminist, working-class single mother who chomps at the bit to stir up the staid world of her patrician department. Author Dobson, a professor at Fordham, might be cheerfully settling some personal scores in her pointed and often funny depictions of the characters that populate the life of a professor of literature. She's also pretty good at spinning a mystery yarn that invariably ends up depending on historical literary figures for a solution.
*Mystery Lovers Book Shop News

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A fun read.

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