Customer Reviews

Death Without Tenure (Library Edition)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Joanne Dobson has done it again. She has brought back Karen Pelletier and I can't wait for the next
installment. The entire series is wonderful--the best in academic mystery. Without giving anything
away, it is set in small, exclusive Enfield College. Karen is brave, brilliant, and resilient. She
is not your typical English professor at a snooty school! This book is very 2010--with attention to
social issues and a very clever use of Facebook. I would definitely recommend this book and would
also hope that people would go back to the beginning and read the entire series.

In Massachusetts, Enfield College English Professor Karen Pelletier is up for tenure. Her rival has much less experience and papers than Karen has. However, the department chair is pushing Native American Joe Lone Wolf for the spot.

Upset by what she knows is unfair treatment, Karen is also anxious about her daughter Amanda who is in Kathmandu, Nepal and her boyfriend U.S. National Guard Bureau Lieutenant and State Police Investigator as a civilian Charles Piotrowski deployed to Iraq. When Joe dies from apparent peyote poisoning, the police suspect Karen as she had plenty to gain with the competition removed. Not one to sit by idly, Karen puts aside her personal concerns made worse by a jealous "Person" in the department to investigate and soon locates other suspects from among the faculty, staff and student bodies.

Professor Pelletier's latest amateur sleuth (see The Maltese Manuscript) is a fascinating whodunit that starts off a bit slow as Karen whines about the unfairness of academic life, but accelerates once the heroine gets out of her funk to investigate the homicide. The story line somewhat lampoons the college world as Karen's inquiries lead to stereotype characters from all lines of academia and their related issues. Fans will enjoy the New England English professor who puts aside her companion The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson to investigate who killed her rival.

Harriet Klausner

For me, a mildly awkward title, but the story is anything but. Author Joanne Dobson
has written another fascinating insider tale about the machinations of the very
private and often arcane world of higher academia. The novel, sixth in the series,
is set in the rarified world of Enfield College, a private high priced and high
minded institution of higher learning.

While college and collegial are from the same root, and college administrations and
faculties try to project an aura of patience, calm and reasoned discourse, we all
know, when we stop to think about it, it ain't always so.

Karen Pelletier is six years into her faculty position in the English Department at
Enfield.. She is beset by an incompetent department chair and a colleague who gives
her the willies. It is tenure decision time. In the academic faculty world, one's
position is essentially temporary until the faculty, deans and ultimately the college
administration, makes a proffer of tenure. Tenure usually means one has a life-time
appointment, so it's a pretty big deal. What's more, if you aren't awarded tenure,
you have to leave the institution. Pelletier is in the midst of collecting and
refining her tenure materials for timely presentation. There are two professors up
for tenure and only one position available. Then her competition is murdered. With
law enforcement looking intently her way, the intrepid professor has to deal with a
raft of odd characters, out-of-the-norm students, political incorrectness and most of
the other ills that occasionally beset college campuses.

Author Dobson is peerless in her depiction of the nuanced atmosphere and language of
the college. Readers will be quickly drawn into campus life. Readers might want to
have a modern dictionary at hand, but the quick pace and logical development
ameliorates the dense language. There was, for my taste, a bit too much detail at
times about a particular decor, or the details of dress where there was little need.

A fine novel, well-plotted, thoughtful, and filled with many amusing bits about the
academic life.

What's more stressful than facing the process needed to secure tenure at a liberal arts university? Well, how about being a murder suspect, like Karen Pelletier, a professor whose blue collar roots sometimes put her at odds with the prestigious Enfield College, where she teaches in Joanne Dobson`s "Death Without Tenure,"? The murder suspect part has happened to her several times before (this is a series) and her current love interest is a detective, but it's still tough. Karen's rival for tenure, Joe Lone Wolf, has an ethnic advantage in this PC climate, but when he is murdered, Karen must once again exonerate herself. The fictional Enfield College, located in the Amherst area of MA, doesn't have quite as many crimes as "Law & Order's" Hudson U, but still plenty.

As the book opens, Karen is commiserating with colleague Miles Jewell, the first clue to a longtime series fan that things have changed. Jill, Karen's best friend at Enfield, appears only briefly here. We do find out what happens to Karen's daughter, Amanda after she graduates, as well as several other students who played major roles in earlier books. Established characters, like Trooper Felicity Schultz and Enfield President Avery Mitchell play roles, as well.

Things have changed since I went to college a decade ago, and the author has fun parodying them. `Writing' like `print' is passe," a student informs Karen proudly as she's filling in for her deceased colleague. "Our texts include Facebook and YouTube." Fortunately, though, Facebook proves handy when Karen needs to investigate her colleague's background and solve the mystery. Overall, this latest in the series is a satisfying read, though it seems a little rushed in places.

A wonderful surprise.I was visiting in Texas and am looking for a new author to read. This was the latest in (Karen Pelletier Mysteries). I have since ordered and read all of her mysteries.I love books and she includes information on other famous authors ,so one learns about them as well.

DEATH WITHOUT TENURE provides a fine Karen Pelletier mystery telling of a professor's tenured position shadowed by a rival's murder. Now Karen is a suspect, involving her lieutenant love in departmental politics and wrapping her in a cloak of suspicion that creates havoc for all around her in this engrossing mystery.

Thanks go to Joanne Dobson for another awesome adventure with Karen Pelletier! I was hooked from page one and I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen. Joanne Dobson weaves a fast paced interesting and intelligent story in all of the Karen Pelletier books and Death Without Tenure does not disappoint. I love Karen and I always enjoy the supporting cast of characters. I can't wait for the next Karen Pelletier book. If you haven't read the previous books you are in for a treat with each one. Happy reading!

Great to have another book about Professor Karen Pelletier. Joanne Dobson really captures the machinations of academia. Since an earlier reviewer has related the plot, there is no need to restate it. So, I will just say that "Death Without Tenure" has an engaging protagonist, a compelling mystery, and wonderful on-campus ambiance. Hope there will be a seventh book in the series. Highly recommended.

Loved Ms. Dobson's latest academic mystery with lots of entertaining and enlightening forays in to the use of social media among college students, generation gaps, the very real trials of tenure and politics in academia, and social/cultural issues of "otherness" and "identity".

The themes were nicely played out both in the larger story (the murder of an English lecturer) and in a touching cross cultural friendship between two of her students--both students are charming, endearing, complex personalities.

The character of the strong, intelligent, young Moroccan woman was beautifully written until the end when the young woman is saddled with a somewhat trite and very out of character plight by Ms. Dobson. Other than this odd plot development--(not sure why she went there because it cast a Harlequin romance type effect on the ending), it's a great read! I hope Ms. Dobson will include Ayesha and Hank in future Karen Pelletier mysteries and keep the reader posted on their futures!

JoAnne Dobson's Karen Pelletier series of mysteries is never a disappointment. Each book brings us along as Karen works toward tenure in the elite English department of her elite little college. In this installment, it looks like Karen will be leaving the college and pursuing tenure elsewhere because the artsy leadership of the department wants to skip over her work for tenure and give the position to a native American who has never published, but who claims the oral tradition of his culture should suffice. When he ends up dead, who's the most likely candidate? Karen, of course. The insights into the extremely liberal society of college faculty are amusing, frightening, and probably realistic in some colleges. Her villain is charming, as well as deadly, and Karen nearly becomes another victim.