Customer Reviews

Blue Blood (Ivy League Mysteries)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I must say Blue Blood was a big disappointment... The pacing is good, and the Yale setting interesting, but Thomas's characters are one cardboard trope after another. She relies much too much on archetypes: the nosy amateur detective, the "things are not what they seem" academic, the repressed blue bloods, the obnoxious rich people, the chic and lovably eccentric grad student, the dysfunctional gay man, the angry activist, and the oversexed blonde. I cared little about any of the characters, felt almost no dramatic build-up, no tension, no suspense. Why have others lavished such praise on this barely adequate book?

It's hard to take seriously a mystery that is prefaced by three pages of "acknowledgements" and ends with an extensive list of the author's non-literary achievements. Is Thomas's role as a trailblazer supposed to insulate her from criticism of her cliched characters and suspenseless plotting? I was a little put off by being reminded of how Thomas was the first this and the first that, and how she's on the board of this and on the committee for that. Who cares? She's not writing a memoir, she's writing a mystery novel.

I hope she does better with her in-the-works Princeton mystery (which is based on the defection of Cornel West from Princeton to Harvard). As a minority alum of that school, I look forward to reading her spin on it--but I must say that my expectations are not high.

After reading Thomas-grahm's first mystery at Harvard (Darker Shade of Crimson), I was eager to see if she could capture the conflicts of race and gender at Yale. She's done it brilliantly in "Blue Blood". The Harvard book was more of a challenge to read because it did not move as quickly as Blue Blood's story line. What I liked most about this book was that it really told you how black women have a foot in two worlds when they are trying to succeed in the mostly white and male world of the Ivy League. I know that there are a lot of black folks (including myself) who originally were suspicious of Thomas-Grahm's writing because we see her in TV interviews, on covers of business magazines and read her bio. I hate to admit it, but after reading about her 3 Harvard degrees, her Phi beta kappa, her Harvard Law Review, her lawyer/writer husband (he wrote about the black upper class--"Our Own Kind of People") her McKensey consulting firm partner stuff, her opera board and her first black running a division of NBC yadda yadda, I wanted to hate her because I was so jealous. Then I read her book and I said "Wow!" I realized that not only does she write really well, but it occurred to me that we're always complaining that talented blacks are never given their due. Well, I can say that here is a black renaissance woman that deserves what she's got. We should be proud of her rather than cutting her down. "Blue Blood" was a great book and it would be an even better movie. Thomas-grahm really understands how to write about the integrated world that so many of us middle class blacks have to deal with. She also seems to know a lot about the upperclass WASP world. Her books introduced me to a whole new world of campus intrigue. Great stuff.

Although I read the book in a matter of hours, I was a little disappointed in the authors writing style and depth of delivery given her list of accomplishments ( contained extensively on the last page of the book) I would like to have seen more thought go into the development of her characters. Notwithstanding the story lines' focus on the death of a "typical white female", I was somewhat disappointed that the author did not see fit to put at least one positive black male role model in the book. After all, I am sure there is one in the New Haven area! Just reminded me of Nancy Drew novels that I read some 20 years ago. Not particulary appealing to mature audiences.

I usually don't like the idea of seeing my favorite murder mysteries turned into movies, but by the time I finished reading "Blue Blood", I was ready to go to the video store and rent the movie!(hope one is in the works) Not only was this a clever story, but it was great to see a smart Nikki Chase go head-to-head with rich Yale alums as well as aggressive black ministers without losing her sense of humor and without turning into a ball-busting man-hating woman. Nikki is classy, smart and very funny. I first heard of author Thomas-Grahm when People Magaizine picked her first book "Darker Shade of Crimson" as "page-turner of the month", but I figured she'd only be able to write about life at Harvard--where she went and where she set the first book. But I went to Yale, and I can tell you she really got our school right. I'm embarassed to say that I was one of those white Yalies who really was afraid of the black people who lived outside campus in New Haven. The author balances the race issues, class issues and a supremely clever murder of the blonde, conservative professor that we all kind of loved to hate. I'm looking forward to the next volume in the author's "Ivy League Mystery Books". My husband went to Dartmouth, so we'll be on the look out.

I found the characters to be one-dimensional. They were either all good or all bad. As a result they did not seem real to me. Real people are more complex. I have been reading mystery novels for over 30 years and this one was one of the few that I found it difficult to keep my mind focused on.

I had misgivings about A DARKER SHADE OF CRIMSON, Pamela Thomas-Graham's first book, but it had enough going for it and seemed authentic enough that I was eager to read BLUE BLOOD, the Yale installment of her so-called Ivy League series. Pamela went to Harvard; I went to Yale. And I can only say I hope she did better by her own alma mater than she did by mine. Sorry, Pam, but you blew it. The book is a swift read, but mostly because it's so pat, so facile. Many of the details of the Yale campus and the city of New Haven are accurate, but so much is just wrong and sloppy and badly researched that it was hard to take anything seriously. One main character is described in one chapter as a stage manager at the Yale Rep and in a later chapter as a set designer (and his alibi for the night of the crime is that he was in NYC buying costumes). No, no and no. That's just bad research or bad writing. If you are going to write about a real place, you have the obligation to be accurate, and PTG is not. Designers at the Yale Rep are usually students at the Yale Drama School; a stage manager has nothing to do with designing the sets or the costumes; the set designer wouldn't go anywhere near the costumes; NO ONE in a professional theater company has time the day of an opening night to be hanging around their apartment watching Rikki Lake; and NO Yale Rep actress playing Lady Macbeth would arrive at the theater 40 minutes late because of a fight with a boyfriend. (Believe me, I've acted at the Yale Rep, and it is just way, way more professional than that... unlike Pamela Thomas-Graham's detective fiction, which is more like the self-congratulatory living-room showing off of a precious wunderkind than it is a Dashiell Hammet or Agatha Christie or Walter Mosley). But it's more than mismanaged details that deamage this book-and an apparently ongoing problem Pam T-G has with fully fleshed characters and/or time (this Nikki Chase detective does WAY too much on any given day to be believable): The plot turns on so many convenient coincidences that nothing is difficult enough to merit attention. Nikki has a penchant for overhearing conversations that explain plot points to her (and to the readers) that is just plain galling. Add to that the cardboard characters and the Introduction to Racism, Sexism, and Class in American Society "politics," and it's a pretty damn annoying book. I don't what Yale did to Pamela to make her hate it so much, but in my experience (five years at Yale and in New Haven), she has not only misunderstood the place, but misrepresented it, which is a shame because the Yale/New Haven social problem (rich school, poor town) is more than a matter of snobby White WASPS vs. oppressed people of color. The Yale I lived in was open and multicultural (and even THAT was 20 years ago). I think that if you are going to call a detective series the IVY LEAGUE series, you are also required to be smart, and these books are not nearly smart enough: Call them the Community College Wanna Be Ivy League series. The most damning thing I can think of to say is that they fail utterly at the one thing great detective fiction does well, which is walk a tightrope through murky moral territory. Everything in these books is too easy for economics professor turned sleuth Nikki Chase, and everything seems far too easy for writer Pamela Thomas-Graham. Apparently the next book in the series is about Princeton. Well, I know that campus, too, and I think I'll pass on Pamela's trashing of the place. I read a lot of mysteries, and I give any writer two chances to win me over. Pamela Thomas-Graham (even her name is annoying) has had her two chances with me. I assume that the glowing reviews by others are a sad indication of just how bad most books are, and how few works of fiction (and especially popular fiction) are willing to address race, class, and gender at all. But to be so glib, so pat, so easy on yourself as a writer as Thomas-Graham has been, helps nothing.

In her first book a Darker Shade of Crimson there was some sense in the story because Nikki Chase was operating in her home environment. This book deals with a murder at Yale of a righr wing law professor. It is hard to understand why Nikki even was around. It also missed the interesting characters from the earlier effort. Nikki's boyfriend Dante is really hard to understand. He appears for no reason

All in all a book that is very hard to believe and is disappointing.

good book and shows how racism hurts both sides and a good mystery to boot!

Refecting a mixture of other reviews here on Amazon, I found this book to have some strong points but also a lot of weak points. T-G writes very entertainingly, but her character development and plot structure leave a lot to be desired. We get only a superficial view of the characters, and the plot has too many unlikely coincidences, such as Nikki repeatedly being close enough to overhear others secretly discussing their actions or motivations yet hidden enough that they don't even realize she is there. Has the overall feel of Ludlum's books, which I also find tediously one-dimensional (although T-G can write a better sentence.) Blue Blood is more of a thriller/page-turner than a serious detective novel such as those produced by Sara Paretsky, whom T-G claims to greatly admire. There is just not enough depth here for me to recommend this to anyone.

I read some of the previous reviews and while I can agree that there are some issues--Nikki's point at Yale is somewhat confused and the thing with Dante seems ambiguous and at points frustratingly random, but it was still a good read. Entertaining, funny, and I thought the descriptions about race were spot on.