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!