The Reader's Shelf—Murder Off-Campus: Mysteries from University Presses

In the “Who knew?” department, a number of university presses regularly publish a mystery or two. There is no clear pattern, but, generally, the authors and the books have strong regional appeal. And sometimes, a university press reissues classic out-of-print mysteries. It's not uncommon for the protagonist of these mysteries to be a professor, but the settings are usually off-campus and surprisingly eclectic.

Jack Austin, a pro golfer and sleuth with heart, never forgets how lucky he is nor loses sight of his priorities. In Golf Today columnist John R. Corrigan's fourth golfing mystery, Bad Lie (Hardscrabble: Univ. Pr. of New England. 2005. ISBN 978-1-58465-454-4. $24.95), Jack is helping his semi-adopted son, Nash, now a college football player, seek his birth father for a long-dreamed reunion. But when the man is found dead, Jack promises Nash to find out why and gets entangled in a complex murder case with roots stretched deep into a troubled family history and tangled up with international smuggling. Corrigan intersperses his crime plot with Philip Levine's poetry and real golf action, making a story with multiple appeals.

Chemistry professor Paul L. Gaus's fifth entry in his Ohio Amish series, A Prayer for the Night (Ohio Univ. 2006. ISBN 978-0-8214-1672-3. $24.95), focuses on the Amish tradition of Rumschpringe, a period when Amish parents allow their adolescents to experience the freedoms of the “English” world before they settle down to a very traditional life. In this case, one Amish teenager is murdered, and the drug culture he found so enticing creeps into this rural Ohio community. Protagonist professor Michael Branden helps his friends, the local sheriff and the pastor, dig out the answers.

Geology infuses the Frankie MacFarlane series by Susan Cummins Miller. In Detachment Fault (Texas Tech. 2004. ISBN 978-0-89672-520-1. $24.95), MacFarlane, a young geology professor at a Tucson, AZ, community college, gets ensnared in a complicated web of murder based on antiquities trading and money laundering. The mystery starts when she finds a dead body in Mexico and deepens when one of her students and a fellow instructor are murdered on campus. The geology expertise works to Frankie's advantage when the action zeroes in on her.

Self-employed public relations consultant Sasha Solomon has a penchant for aerosol whipped cream and psychic hunches. She also has a habit of stumbling into murders. In Pari Noskin Taichert's The Belen Hitch (Univ. of New Mexico. 2006. ISBN 978-0-8263-3916-4. pap. $14.95), the second series entry, Sasha's client is the little New Mexico town of Belen, whose civic leaders are trying to figure out which angle to promote for their public relations campaign: their history as a train town, or as the home of a famous, iconic female artist. But when Sasha finds the artist's body, things quickly get complicated.

Joseph Hansen's much-heralded, award-winning, 12-book Dave Brandstetter series starts with Fadeout (Univ. of Wisconsin. 2004. ISBN 978-0-299-20554-6. pap. $15.95). Originally published in 1970, it features gay insurance claims investigator Dave Brandstetter. When middle-aged folk singer Fox Olson's car is found washed up in a storm drain but no body surfaces, Dave is sent to figure out the real story.

Richard Stark's (aka Donald E. Westlake) Parker novels have long been popular, but it is difficult to find the early entries in the long-running series. That changes this fall when the first three titles (The Hunter, The Man with the Getaway Face, and The Outfit) are republished. Readers would do well to start with The Hunter (Univ. of Chicago. 2008. ISBN 978-0-226-77099-4. pap. $14). Inspiring two films (starring Lee Marvin in Point Blank and Mel Gibson in Payback), this 1962 noir novel tells how master thief Parker began his infamous crime career. Double-crossed by his partner and his own wife, Parker is left for dead and robbed of his half of the take from an ambitious heist. Hell-bent on revenge, Parker represents the antihero with dubious morals. Stark's clever plot structure, moving back and forth in time, is totally engrossing.

Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Mignon G. Eberhart's novels fit neatly into that “golden age” of early women mystery writers—her first came out in 1929. Readers will be charmed by the amateur detective pursuits of nurse Sarah Keate and police detective buddy Lance O'Leary. While the Patient Slept (Bison: Univ. of Nebraska. 1995. ISBN 978-0-8032-6726-8. pap. $11) is a true closed-room drama and would appeal to readers who love a good puzzle.

This column was contriubted by Teresa (Terry) L. Jacobsen, Solano County Library, Fairfield, CA