Island Confidential: academic mystery

Showing posts with label academic mystery. Show all posts

#MidweekMystery Death by Dissertation and A Crafter Hooks a Killer

Life has always been sweet on Georgia’s Peach Cove Island, but a case of murder has Marygene Brown down in the pits . . .
from #MidweekMystery Death by Dissertation and A Crafter Hooks a Killer

The Cursed Canoe #SampleSunday

It’s not like me to wish someone ill. I try to get along with everyone, not always an easy task for a new department chair. But seeing the good in the officious and incurious Kathy Banks, my liaison in Mahina State’s Student Retention Office, is beyond my ability.
from The Cursed Canoe #SampleSunday

The Blessed Event will be on sale for $0.99 from Monday, 4/15 to Monday, 4/22 #SampleSunday

"You may wonder what my least-favorite student was doing in my living room. In a twist of fate that might seem hilarious if it happened to someone else, he was now my stepson."
from The Blessed Event will be on sale for $0.99 from Monday, 4/15 to Monday, 4/22 #SampleSunday

A new academic murder mystery! Broken Heart Attack by James J. Cudney.

"Suspects- and motives- abound, but can Kellen solve the mystery before his past catches up to him or the sheriff strangles him?" ~ Amazon Reviewer
from A new academic murder mystery! Broken Heart Attack by James J. Cudney.

Teaching, Research, Murder.

My Academic Mysteries page is up to 19 authors. I’ve made some additions, both classic and modern, but it’s possible I still don’t have them all. Any great campus crime authors who should be on this list?
from Teaching, Research, Murder.

Enjoy campus mysteries? Here they are, all in one place. Now, who’s missing?

I love campus mysteries (which is why I write them) and have been collecting them here. Come have a look and tell me who’s missing! If you’re an author and are already listed, tell me what changes you’d like in your description.
from Enjoy campus mysteries? Here they are, all in one place. Now, who’s missing?

New academic mystery |(with giveaway and character interview!): The Spirit in Question by Cynthia Kuhn

English professor Lila Maclean knew drama would be involved when she agreed to consult on Stonedale University’s production of Puzzled: The Musical. But she didn’t expect to find herself cast into such chaos: the incomprehensible play is a disaster, the crumbling theater appears to be haunted, and, before long, murder takes center stage. The show … Continue reading
from New academic mystery |(with giveaway and character interview!): The Spirit in Question by Cynthia Kuhn

Judging a book by its cover: What does your face reveal about your personality?

Go ahead and judge a book by its cover. You'll probably be right.
from Judging a book by its cover: What does your face reveal about your personality?

Let’s talk about campus murder mysteries

Let’s talk about campus murder mysteries. I love reading them and writing them. What is it about academia that sparks thoughts of murder? Of course there’s the old saying that “campus politics are so nasty because the stakes are so small.” But that’s more of an observation than an explanation. I have some ideas: Clashing … Continue reading
from Let’s talk about campus murder mysteries

Guest Post: The Dark Side of the Ivory Tower by C. T. Collier (and a new Professor Lyssa Pennington mystery!)

After a rough semester, Professor Lyssa Pennington just wants to post her grades and join her husband, Kyle, in Cornwall for Christmas. First, though, she’s expected to host an elegant dinner for Emile Duval, the soon-to-be Chair of Languages at Tompkins College. Too bad no one told Lyssa murder is on the menu. And, by … Continue reading
from Guest Post: The Dark Side of the Ivory Tower by C. T. Collier (and a new Professor Lyssa Pennington mystery!)

Truth is Boring

One question that I get is, “Am I in your book?” I can see why people might ask this. The setting is a public university in Hawaii, similar in some ways to my own workplace. The main character is Molly Barda, who teaches in the Mahina State University College of Commerce. I teach at a … Continue reading
from Truth is Boring

New academic mystery, #Giveaway, and character interview: The Art of Vanishing

>>>Enter to win a copy of The Art of Vanishing<<< When Professor Lila Maclean is sent to interview celebrated author and notorious cad Damon Von Tussel, he disappears before her very eyes. The English department is thrown into chaos by the news, as Damon is supposed to headline Stonedale University’s upcoming Arts Week. The chancellor […]
from New academic mystery, #Giveaway, and character interview: The Art of Vanishing

The Secret Crime on Campus: Guest Post by Bourne Morris, author of Rise of the Red Queen

“With The Rise of the Red Queen, Bourne Morris is poised to become the queen of academic mysteries and suspense.” – Gigi Pandian, USA Today Bestselling Author of the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mysteries

A beautiful journalism student is abducted by a man with unusual and frightening expectations. While searching for her missing student, Red Solaris must contend with a university committee quarreling over the rights of the victims and those accused in sexual assault cases. And, in the midst of all this, a journalism professor brings a gun to school and shoots a colleague. Will Red’s ambition to become dean be destroyed by scandal around her? Will she and Detective Joe Morgan ever acknowledge their true feelings for each other?

The Secret Crime on Campus

Guest Post by Bourne Morris

I was a college professor for 26 years and now I write fiction about campus violence. In the past two years, we have all seen the number of discussions and articles in the media about sexual assault on American campuses. It’s raised some serious questions in my mind about my own college experience and about the health and safety of the students I taught for 26 years. I know the topic is not cozy, but if you have a child going to college these days, it’s worth thinking about.

Should the names of Sexual Assault victims be kept secret? Some women are coming forward with stories of what happened to them. Not just older women, but often young women who are still in school. Those who go public call themselves survivors, not victims, and many regard the process of telling their stories as a step toward healing.

Yet, at many universities, the policy of the administration is still to protect the identity of the victim. And many major news organizations still have policies requiring that the name of the assaulted be kept secret from the community.

Is this discretion reasonable? From time to time someone argues that if a man or woman was robbed, his or her name would be revealed. If she was murdered her name would be known as soon as the body was identified and the family notified. If he was beaten up in a parking lot, we would know his name as well as what he could tell us about the event.

But sexual assault is a crime of violence still shrouded in secrecy. It seems we have a hard time separating the word “sexual’ from the word “assault.” The difference in attitudes, often reflected in varying state laws, is enough to drive you crazy. In some places, unless the victim actively fights back, no crime is committed.

One of the more surprising facts I learned in my research is the number of times the female victim is fearful she will lose her friends if she reports assault. In too many cases, it’s not the accused who tells her to keep her mouth shut, it’s other girls in her dorm or sorority.

Perhaps we are unwilling to identify the victim of a sex crime because even if she (or he) is badly hurt, we still think that somehow the victim was partly to blame.

Or maybe it’s because we still think that a young woman is somehow so altered by the event it will affect her chances of marriage. Or that a young man who is assaulted must be some sort of weakling.

Or maybe it’s because it’s so darn difficult to prove a crime when it’s two people telling very different versions of the same event

Or because, every once in a while, someone makes it up to get a former lover in trouble.

Whatever our reasons, the rule of secrecy causes more sorrow and depression than we know. One has only to understand what it is like to keep a traumatic event a secret for years, to keep from seeking justice for a crime committed against yourself or someone close, to know what price the survivors pay for the discretion as well as the act itself.

Why I decided to write about sexual assault in “The Rise of the Red Queen.” The basic theme of the Red Queen series is campus crime and violence. And trying to cope with the problems posed by sexual assault is a major issue for today’s university administrations. The variety of policies now in place or under consideration indicate the predicament we find ourselves in.

It seems to be no trick at all to decide that campus crimes of murder, theft, battery and vandalism are immediately reported to the police and described in the media.

Perhaps some day we will be as open and swift about sexual assault. We will believe is not about sex. It is not a form of bullying or a drunken error in judgment. It’s an act of violence and should be treated as such.

That’s what my protagonist, Dr. Meredith “Red” Solaris hopes as she battles with the murky politics of her campus and searches for a kidnapped student taken by a deranged man.

About The Author

After Bennington College, I worked at McCall’s Magazine and then went to Ogilvy&Mather, New York during the “Mad Men “ era. David Ogilvy and his colleagues treated me wonderfully, promoted me several times and then sent me west to become head of their agency in Los Angeles. I had a splendid run in advertising.

In 1983, I joined the University of Nevada Reno as a full professor in Journalism where I taught until 2009. I learned about campus politics when I served as chair of the faculty senate. I retired to write mysteries in 2009 after a wonderful teaching career.

I live with my husband of 34 years in a ranch house with a view of tall trees and mountains. We have four children and eight grandchildren. Life is good.

Amazon Author Page | Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

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Filed under: Author Interviews, pychology, Writing Tagged: academic mystery, Author Interviews, blog tour, Bourne Morris, campus crime, red queen
from The Secret Crime on Campus: Guest Post by Bourne Morris, author of Rise of the Red Queen

Author Interview: Clea Simon

Last Month, Library Journal said a number of nice things about The Musubi Murder. But the nicest was this:

VERDICT Certain to appeal to readers who love well-drawn settings or academic cozies such as Sarah Shaber’s “Simon Shaw” series or Clea Simon’s “Dulcie Schwartz” books.

The Dulcie Schwartz series began with Shades of Grey, in which Dulcie, a doctoral student at Harvard, receives a lifesaving warning from the ghost of Mr. Grey…her cat. Shades of Grey was followed by Grey Matters, Grey Zone, Grey Expectations, True Grey, Grey Dawn, Grey Howl, Stages of Grey, and her newest, Code Grey.

Booklist, the review publication of the American Library Association, had this to say about Code Grey:

Working on her dissertation, Dulcie Schwartz is one of the few people remaining at Harvard over spring break. Her scholarly pursuits are interrupted when she comes to the defense of a former Harvard student, Jeremy, now homeless, who is found at a construction site, holding a long-missing, valuable book. Police like Jeremy for the rash of recent campus break-ins, but Dulcie doesn’t buy it. With the help of her friend, rare-books librarian Mr. Griddlehaus, she begins to research the history of the missing book, which was part of a collection donated to the library decades ago, when Griddlehaus, Jeremy, and the head of facilities were all students. Cats play a role, of course, in sorting out the mystery, and Dulcie’s abilities to communicate with felines comes in very handy. This unusual and intelligent series continues to surprise, with additional backstory on some of the characters adding layers of interest. Readers will not want Dulcie to finish her dissertation anytime soon.– Booklist, July 1, 2015

I’m thrilled to have Clea here today, kicking off the blog tour for Code Grey.

Q. Can you tell us what the book is about?

A. This is the ninth Dulcie Schwartz mystery. Dulcie is a graduate student, writing her dissertation on an 18th Century Gothic novel, so as you can imagine her own life takes a Gothic turn, full of ghosts and odd happenings – but the one friendly constant is the ghost of her late, great grey cat, Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey looks out for her (and for her boyfriend and new cat, Esmé). In “Code Grey,” Dulcie is doing research over spring break,when she stumbles over a former student at the college and a rare book that has been missing, assumed stolen, for years…

Q. What kind of research did you do for Dulcie’s life and daily routine? Were there any surprises when you were doing your research?

A. By now, I know Dulcie’s routine fairly well! I never went as far as Dulcie did in my education, but I spent my years in the library as an undergraduate! For Code Grey, I did research both book conservation and stolen books. Did you know there’s an online registry of stolen books? The idea is that rare book dealers should check whenever anyone brings anything suspicious in to sell and they can check everything from watermarks to the provenance of various publications… Creepy, huh? The restoration part was incredibly fun – learning how conservators stabilize centuries-old paper and what ancient ink looks like after a few hundred years… I think of Code Grey as a love story to books, in part.

Q. I love murder mysteries set on college campuses, from Gaudy Night onward. Is there something about the academic environment that gives rise to murderous passions?

A. I think readers love bookish things – and academia is the world of books. Don’t we all fantasize about a life where reading is our work as well as our play? Beyond that, for a mystery, it’s a perfect setting – a small, enclosed world full of rivalries and petty jealousies…

Q. How do you keep a series fresh? Where do you allow your characters to change, and what do you keep constant?

A. It is hard! For me, part of what keeps changing is Dulcie’s work on her dissertation. She has to keep progressing, so that’s always new. And she’s getting close to finishing. One of her friends has already graduated and gotten a post-doctoral position. As time passes in the books, the relationships change in a natural way, I hope. For instance, Dulcie is now quite secure in her relationship with her boyfriend – but she does wonder about some of her friends these days…

Q. On your blog, you list twenty-one books, several short stories, and quite a few articles in high-profile publications. Do you have any productivity tricks that you could share?

A. It’s not really a trick – I make myself write every day, Monday through Friday. This is how I want to spend my life, so I figure I need to view it as a job. Being a journalist was great training for this – you can’t afford the luxury of writer’s block when you have a deadline. Not if you want to get paid and keep your job. So I write every day. What I write might not be good. It might get thrown out, but I write!

Q. Writing can be very solitary. How do you balance the need for solitude with the need to get out and be with people?

A. I spend too much time on Facebook! But also I do make a point of making social dates with friends – going out for lunch every now and then or seeing people on the weekends. Otherwise when my husband comes home from work, I’d talk his ear off!

About The Author

Clea Simon worked as a journalist and non-fiction author before turning to crime (fiction). She is the author of 18 mysteries in the Theda Krakow, Dulcie Schwartz, and Pru Marlowe pet noir series. Clea grew up in New York, before moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts to attend Harvard. She fell in love with the city and lives there still with her husband, writer Jon Garelick, and their cat, Musetta.

Author Links

Facebook / Blog / Twitter / Goodreads / Severn House

Purchase Links:

Amazon / B&N / Book Depository

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