Customer Reviews

Bad Chemistry (Missing Mysteries)

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While I initially found this story entertaining, I have to argue that it really isn't a mystery at all. It's more of an illustration of the feminist politics of the characters. In other words, the killer is exactly who you expect it to be. I kept waiting for an entertaining twist and there was none. And even as a feminist, I found myself unable to swallow all the pronouncements of certain characters.

Don't read this for the mystery. Read it, if at all, for the politics. They are the real reason for this novel's existence. And don't say you weren't warned.

Nora Kelly is a native Easterner who is now living in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she teaches part time. She has been involved in writing her Gillian Adams mysteries for several years, and has won the 1999 Arthus Ellis Best Novel Award awarded by the Canadian Crime Writers Association.

Using a University as a backdrop, where old buildings reek of sinister motives; strange chemicals are used in obscure experiments; and cutthroat individualists fight over diminishing federal and private grant funds is a recipe for intrigue and mayhem. Gillian Adams is a department head of the History Department at the University of the Pacific Northwest. Her boyfriend, Edward Gisborne, is a Deputy Chief Inspector for Scotland Yard. Both have demanding jobs and have let their relationship wind around their crushing schedules. Gillian is in Cambridge, England on Sabbatical, thinking about her next career move, when the murder of Wendy Fowler, a research fellow strikes uncomfortably close. Gillian's friends are involved in a nonprofit organization called the Pregnancy Information Service where Wendy volunteered. It is up to Gillian and Edward to sort out the murderer's motives, and to tie the murderer in with the PIS office:

" So you think he might have burgled the PIS office?' Irene said. To steal the cards? That's silly. What good would it do?' Maybe he wanted to see what we said about other doctors. Maybe he thought he could sue if he had the evidence.' No. But he might have taken the book. Who else would? He probably thought the information he wanted was in it. Or something else he could use against us. And then he took the money so we'd think it was an ordinary burglary."

Not only does Kelly create a labyrinth of clues; her characterizations have the reader seriously considering almost every character she introduces as a suspect. Her particular form of feminism is well articulated through the characters, and their relationships strike a chord in the reader. Wendy Fowler is pregnant, and when a second body turns up that is connected to the PIS, Gillian and Edward take the reader through a well constructed plot that keeps the pages turning.

Bad Chemistry is great fun and is a cozy that will be embraced by the mystery reading world.

Shelley Glodowski, Reviewer