The Mark Twain Murders

The edition I have of this book was published the year I arrived at "Midwestern" University. I never met the author, who taught writing there for 30 years. She passed away in 2012. This was her first mystery and was reasonably well-received (https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-edith-skom-obituary-20160218-story.html). As mysteries go, it's colorful, but a bit light on the detection side and heavier on the romance. Our heroes gradually narrow in on the murderer, but very little is figured out until the standard "let me explain this before I kill you" chapter. The underlying resolution is well worked, but the suspects never stood clearly apart as well as they need to to raise the proper suspense. Life in the library with its study show more carrells is well depicted. The English faculty felt less convincing to me. Even taken satirically, they seemed more like caricatures than those in Schumacher's more humorous "Dear Committee Members". My one big annoyance was the invocation several times of the main character deciding not to tell the handsome FBI agent a possibly important clue.

Still, an enjoyable read. show less

Since the heroine was a professor her lack of good sense detracted dorm the story.

good - like the professor character - will look for others