Dr. Sophie Knowles is a mathematics professor at Henley
College in Massachusetts. While her students can't stop
singing her praises, she often butts heads with Dr.
Underwood, the academic dean. Then, there's Dr. Keith
Appleton, who holds the unofficial title of Most Disliked
Professor on Campus. He is abrasive toward students and
colleagues alike, with seemingly no redeeming qualities.
Sophie's assistant Rachel has drawn the misfortune of having
Dr. Appleton as a thesis adviser, and she needs to complete
a solid thesis, as well as have his recommendation to
continue to pursue her dream of applying to medical school.
Instead, he has told her that her latest efforts are
worthless, leading her to ask Sophie to discreetly talk to
him to get his honest opinion on her work. But before
Sophie can do so, Dr. Appleton's body is discovered in his
office during a party.
Rachel becomes the primary suspect for a variety of reasons,
but she ends up calling Sophie and asking her to help her
out. Sophie and Rachel not only have a solid relationship,
but Sophie is known for being an expert puzzle solver, as
she moonlights as a puzzle writer for various publications.
It also helps that Sophie's boyfriend's best friend is a
detective on the local police force, and is willing to help
her out as much as he can without compromising the case.
This was a well-written cosy, and having a mathematician
with a penchant for solving puzzles was a nice device for
working her into solving mysteries and investigating deaths.
Since this is the first book in the series, the references
Sophie and her boyfriend Bruce would make to prior events
would sometimes seem a bit jarring. While it's evident they
have a prior history (which doesn't in and of itself bother
me; I don't believe that a new series has to start each
character on an island), the way in which this was done
often made me doubt that I was actually reading a "first in
a series" book. The only other (slightly) negative thing,
is that as someone who has a quite mathematical head myself,
I found the way the chapter headings were presented (square
root signs) to be distracting. Since Chapter Nine was
presented under a square root sign, the maths portion of my
head automatically read this as "Chapter Three," for instance.
Sophie herself is a solid character, and she somehow makes
me long for my undergrad days, although I can't actually
imagine reliving those days. It's clear, though, that she
cares about her students, has passion about the maths, and
she has a great work/life balance, which is often lacking in
female protagonists. The relationships she has formed with
the other characters (both positive and negative) read as
quite natural and organic and never seem forced but rather
quite real.
I am definitely looking forward to the next book in the
series, and I hope the series is a success!
While celebrating famous scholars of the past with her
students, Dr. Sophie Knowles, a much loved math teacher at
Henley College, must add up the clues to prove her
assistant's innocence when she is accused of killing Dr.
Keith Appleton, the most disliked professor on campus.
Original. 20,000 first printing.
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