Quieter than Sleep a modern mystery of Emily Dickinson [Mass Market Paperback]

Joanne Dobson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 3, 1998

Karen Pelletier abandoned her life in New York for a professorship at Massachusetts's elite Enfield College. But she quickly learns that New England is not the peaceful enclave she had imagined--and that not even the privileged world of academia is immune to murder....

Professor Karen Pelletier's prime literary passion is poet Emily Dickinson--a passion she shares with her hotshot colleague Randy Astin-Berger. Heir apparent to the head of Enfield's English department, the pompous Randy is the campus Casanova. That is, he was--until he was found strangled with his own flashy necktie.

The last person to see Randy alive--and the first to find him dead--Karen knows she must solve the case before she becomes the prime suspect. But to do that, she must first discover the truth behind Randy's final Dickinsonian discovery--a literary bombshell that may well have been to die for....

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Karen Pelletier is the kind of person who, driving through a snowstorm, chants Emily Dickinson to herself as a talisman--"It sifts from Leaden Sieves, / It powders all the Wood. / It fills with Alabaster Wool / The Wrinkles of the Road." And Joanne Dobson has done such a good job making Karen a real and complex character that we happily go along for the ride. In her first novel, Dobson (who teaches English at Fordham University and has written a book about Dickinson) adds new life to the academic mystery by making her lead character as tough as she is smart: a working-class single mother suddenly offered a chance to teach at the very posh Enfield College in Massachusetts. Professor Pelletier, who left behind a longtime lover in New York to take the job, now has to cope with men as diverse as Randy Astin-Berger (a trendy, Mick Jagger look-alike trying to live up to his first name), a patrician college president sending out mixed messages, and--after Karen finds Randy strangled by his necktie in a closet--a comfortable old cop called Piotrowski. The reality of academic hysteria is perfectly captured; the crime and detection are carefully plotted; and Dobson fully fleshes out Karen, her daughter Amanda, and all the rest of her female characters so that they live with the reader long after the book is finished. --Dick Adler

From Kirkus Reviews

Has anybody kept actuarial statistics on those faculty parties? They must be more dangerous than skydiving. This one, president Avery Mitchell's annual Christmas bash for the staff of Enfield College, leaves logorrheic hotshot Randy Astin-Berger, who's been putting the moves on newcomer Karen Pelletier, welcomely silenced and immobilized by a strategically applied necktie. (Bonnie Weimer, a student whose whining is stilled by similar means soon after, proves that academic life itself is dangerous, since the more you talk the more likely you are to get killed.) It's not easy for Karen to tear herself away from her romantic preoccupations--the husband she left back in New York to take her teaching job, her fascination with President Mitchell's cute buns, her love/hate mating dance with investigating homicide cop Lt. C. Piotrowski--and her determination to protect brilliant, suicidal student Sophia Warzek from her family demons. Egged on by Piotrowski, though, she gradually focuses on the mysterious letter Randy bragged about discovering. What 19th- century secret could he have unearthed that pushed one of his colleagues to murder? Emily Dickinson scholar Dobson's first novel has an appealing heroine, a nifty payoff, and a beguiling way with the extracurricular entanglements of her teaching stiffs. But suspicion is distributed more generously than are clues to the hard-to-believe killer. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; First Thus edition (August 3, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553576607
• ISBN-13: 978-0553576603
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.9 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,182,723 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sleep Keeps Readers on Toes!, July 9, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quieter than Sleep (Hardcover)

"The clost door flew open and Randy Astin-Berger found me for the last time, falling forward into my arms in a first, and final, embrace."

This first novel by Joanne Dobson, an associate professor of English at Fordham University is anything but a sleeper! This mystery is set in the posh, political world of a small, elite Eastern college where fools sometimes rule and enemies are made for seemingly obscure reasons.

Karen Pelletier, our heroine, is a suspect in the murder of Astin-Berger, but so are Avery Mitchell, the college president, single and very appealing; Ned Hilton, the professor who, as a result of the deceased's influence, did not receive tenure; plus any number of the students who were victims of Astin-Berger's charms and misuse of power.

Enter Police Lieutenant Piotrowski, overweight and overwhelming, a real contrast to the proper Professor Pelletier. He seeks her help in solving the puzzle and pays her a much needed per diem to research the Dickenson papers that seem to play a part in the crime. Karen finds the answer in her research and almost loses her own life, but for the now-slimming, more gentle lieutenant.

This reader hopes more novels featuring the college setting, and including the appealing college president and, of course, Lt. Piotrowski already are being written by Dobson.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dobson is a master of plot, character, and setting., May 29, 2000

By 

Sharon Wylie (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Quieter than Sleep a modern mystery of Emily Dickinson (Mass Market Paperback)

Readers who appreciate an intricate mystery plot will enjoy Dobson immensely. This book has it all--a tightly-woven, haiku of a mystery; interesting, well-developed characters who act in synchronization with their motives (and whose motives stem from their personalities); and an intimate and realistic exploration of the specialized world of academia.

It's a shame how few mystery writers manage to hit all three targets, but Dobson shows herself to be a master (that she keeps this up through the next two books is nothing short of amazing). Dobson's specialty (in my opinion) is the integration of subplots and side stories with the main mystery. Everything happens for a reason, and the reason always has to do with the mystery (not just to throw the reader off-track).

I'm looking forward to the fourth book in the series this winter.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great richly woven tapestry of a mystery!, June 23, 2000

By 

K. L Sadler "Dr. Karen L. Sadler" (Freedom, Pa. USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Quieter than Sleep a modern mystery of Emily Dickinson (Mass Market Paperback)

This was a new author for me, but caught my eye with its topic on academia. Since I am stuck in that world (kidding) myself, and know of the foibles of this world with the grant writing, the little secrets, the gossiping from which luckily I am exempt since I am deaf (but I "hear" third or fourth hand, literally by hand), I got a big kick out of the characters Ms. Dobson has written about. This is a deeply intelligent mystery without the need to be offensive as I find some writers are. I kept hoping and keep hoping that none of this about Emily Dickinson is true, since I love her poetry. But this was a truly satisfying mystery in plot, in characterization, and in explaining the whys and wherefores of a world many don't know about. Karen Sadler, Science Education, University of Pittsburgh