Customer Reviews

The Princeton Impostor

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

McLeod Dulaney is a Florida journalist who has landed a great gig: teaching writing at Princeton University one semester a year. Coincidentally, every time she's up in New Jersey, she's involved in a murder investigation on campus. Inquisitive by nature, McLeod makes every attempt to solve the murder. She gets close to the truth but often comes to a slightly incorrect conclusion.

In this fifth installment in the series, we learn more about the class McLeod teaches and the students she comes in contact with. Greg Pierre, her best writing student, has evidently enrolled under a pseudonym to avoid legal charges from his home out West. After a grad student alerts school authorities to Greg's deception, the informant is found murdered in the chemistry lab. McLeod comes to Greg's rescue and tries to find out who was responsible for the murder. A second murder follows, and McLeod keeps asking questions. Will she figure everything out before she's next? And what's the status of her relationship with police investigator Nick Perry? How about her housemate and host, George Bridges?

The episodes in this series are like bags of potato chips: you can't stop at just one. Though the general writing style and the unraveling of each mystery won't set the world on fire, the books are entertaining enough -- especially for folks who are connected to Princeton or to any academic atmosphere where similar circumstances could certainly arise.

In this fifth book of the series, we find McLeod Dulaney again teaching her writing class in Princeton (great life: working in the South as a reporter and one semester a year teachin in New Jersey). Her emotional entanglement with the Vice President - George is over and now she is leaning into a relationship with the local police lieutenant Nick Perry.

While teaching this semester, the police come in and nab one of her students. This starts one of the two storylines in the book. Actually, this one is not original as it copies pretty well the story of James Hogue who really did get admitted to Princeton on false premises as a track star. But to get back to our story, the person who reveals Greg Pierre's real name is found dead shortly thereafter, so naturally, all suspicion resides on the student.

Well, McLeod does not believe that any student of hers is possible a murderer so she starts investigating. She goes around and asks lots of people lots of questions and the amusing parts are that the murders take place in the Chemistry department and as an English major, McLeod has no idea what chemists do. Reading some of her interviews and seeing her complete non-understanding of what she is being told is quite funny.

One of the things that I liked about this book is that it showed McLeod for what she is: a meddler who does not always get it right. About one third of the way into the book, it becomes quite obvious who the real murderer was. However, I kept trying to make someone else be the murderer as I could not believe how obvious this was. Well, McLeod has a similar problem and she ends up accusing someone else to her police paramour. Luckily, the Police have figured out who the real murderer is based on what is described as solid evidence, namely fingerprints and alibis.

the world of scientific academia is briefly explored with the author touching on how scientific labs work; the pressure to publish and the results of either publishing or perishing; the pressure to be the first and the rewards that accrue to the first to publish; and how seriously graduate students take their world. Although I have to admit, the funny line "who would want to kill a graduate student?" is repeated several times and is funny each time it's read.

I only rate this a three star as the plot was too obviously copied from the real life Princeton Impostor and otherwise clumsily entwined around a murder mystery; a murder mystery that really isn't; and a completely gratuitous second murder. Oh well, I hope the next one is much better!

Somehow I identify with the main characater, McLeod. Maybe it's her white hair that makes me feel akin. I like the way she relates to the students, even the imposter. And the setting feels so authentic. McLeod is a no-nonsense woman and fearless. She fits in well with the other academics and is shrewd about people. This particular book has a more complicated plot than the rest of the series and at times seemed baffling to me. But it all made sense in the end.

We follow Professor McLeod Dulany in her 6th adventure in the vicious depths of the academic world. McLeod spends part of the year in Tallahassee at Florida State University and the other part in Princeton as a visiting professor of writing. When her prize student of the semester is escorted from her class by the local police, McLeod is justifiably upset. Following class, she confronts her friend and landlord George, a higher-up in the University administration, about the hullabaloo, only to find out that her student, Greg Pierre, is wanted for parole violation in Wyoming. McLeod works to free him from the charges, but when the informant who turned the information about Greg into the authorities is found dead on campus, even McLeod is wondering about the innocence of her favorite pupil.


Greg has an interesting story on how he got to Princeton, and McLeod believes him. She sets out to prove his innocence, only to have him turn up as the number one suspect in the murder of another student. Determined that her prize student shall finish out the semester, McLeod figures out a way to get into the chemistry department to research the murder suspect, and manages to work her way around campus providing meals for various students, digging up background information. When another chemistry student is found dead in off-campus housing, everything takes a different turn for McLeod, because now the detectives know she's been investigating - and so does the murderer.

This is my first Death is Academic murder mystery with Prof. McLeod Dulany, and most likely my last. I had a lot of problems with the naivety of the characters, but most with McLeod. Her character is a former reporter, and she's now a professor. She believes people at face value, with little or no evidence or logic applied to the situation. Having lived in the academic community for years, naïve is not a word I would use sparingly for professors, despite the author's valid point of the cloistered world of academia.

This cozy was not to my personal taste, but those who don't favor a lot of action or simply want a light read may enjoy this plot, and will probably relate to the humanities' world trying to comprehend the scientific world.