Customer Reviews

The "M" Word (Bel Barrett Mysteries)

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

 

 

Endearingly humorous, Jane Isenberg's first novel is a deliciously fun read. Isenberg succeeds in bringing to life a host of characters who can't resist getting themselves into all kinds of trouble. You'll love reading Bel's witty dialogue with her friends. You'll laugh with (and at) her as she brings you into her bathroom, her bedroom, her classroom, and even her metamorphosing menopausal body. You'll cheer her on and laugh out loud. You might start doing yoga in the middle of the night. This is a brave and hilarious new take on mystery writing. Who knew a menopausal sleuth could be so funny?!

On every page, I laughed or nodded wryly with recognition of people in my everyday life--only wittier and smarter than the ones I know! Jane Isenberg has created characters whose feelings, motivations and actions strike both a familiar chord and the funny bone. And she has placed them in a fast-paced, intelligent plot that combines individual ambitions and societal realities in a situation mirrored in today's headlines. The fact that her main character is a 50-something woman in the throes of menopausal symptoms is the icing on the cake--would that we all could put our hot flashes and memory lapses to such good use as Bel Barrett does. Set in a multicultural urban and academic milieu, "The M Word" also features savvy, intuitive Latina and African American women who are both real and realistic about the challenges they and their families face. I highly recommend "The M Word" to all mystery lovers, all academics (especially those in community colleges--you might learn something about your own administration politics!) and all mid-life women with a sense of humor about their situation. I hope Bel and comrades will be back soon and often in other cleverly involved plots that mix inescapable truths with ironic fun.

Jane Isenberg treats us to the world of the community college in THE M WORD - and it's all true...except for the murder, of course! Bel Barrett and her colleagues have to solve the murder of the college's president - even while battling the confusion of hot flashes and mid-life memory crises. A delightful tale well-told!

Altagracia Garcia, President of the local community college is making big changes. She's trying to get a new campus for the college, not renewing leases on several buildings they currently rent, as being unfit for use. Firing useless employee's. So it's not such a big surprise that at the Fall Festival, she drops dead from poison.

The police quickly arrest, Oscar Beckman, a Culinary Arts major who had just returned to school after being suspended for cheating in the last semester.

Bel realizes that Oscar, whose best grade outside the Culinary classes was an incomplete was no killer.

With the help of Illuminade Gutrerrez - an adjunt professor and full-time private eye and Altagracia's assistant, Betty Ramsey, Bel is determined to find out who killed the popular president. Could it be her husband who has a secret. One of the people she fired? One of the property owners who have lost income through the lost leases. Or someone else?

Highlights:

Bel's e-mail. Bel is going through menopause and has an on-line support group. The helpful suggestions they are offering are both informative and funny.

The mystery. Very good. I didn't figure it out and it took real detective work on the part of Bel and her new friends to solve it.

The supporting characters are good, especially, Illuminade & Betty. There are also, Becky & Mark. Bel's two kids. Becky is going to college in Washington, living with her boyfriend and generally keeps in touch through her e-mail. Mark is currently a nanny to two small kids.

The humor. There is a lot of humor in this book, I laughed out loud several times.

Lowlights:

Sol - Bel's live-in partner. This character is so lightweight I don't understand Bel's attraction to him. He's a retired economic professor, who's into preservation and working with Eastern European countries on their economies. Maybe he'll improve as the series goes along.

I had read a short story in the anthology book "Motherhood Is Murder" which got me interested in this character and I have bought the series and have finally started reading. Looking forward to the next book.

Bel Barrett is a hoot- a hoot from Hoboken no less - who makes menopause seem survivable and NJ seem like a fascinating place where crime pays very well. I am looking forward to the next book in this one of a kind series.

College prof Barrett is deep in the clutches of menopause. While we follow her struggles to cope with that, she struggles to cope with the brutal murder of the new college president, and prove a favorite student innocent of the crime. It's a fun, often funny, inside look at some aspects of higher education and menopause. There are many clever bits and devices, which sometimes get in the way of a tighter story. The characters and the setting ring true and the solution is satisfactory.

Jane Isenberg's debut mystery THE "M" WORD is a fresh look at crime in academia. Bel Barrett is an English professor whose views were shaped in the sixties, but now that she's turning fifty those beliefs are becoming more difficult to maintain. She works at a struggling community college that garners little respect from either its students or staff until a new president takes over. When the president is murdered and one of Bel's students is falsely accused of the crime, she feels compelled to find the real killer. In the process Bel exposes the high stakes of patronage in urban education, the differences in both the dreams and the demands of students who attend this type school versus those attending the ivy halls of a four year university, and the seamy side of people she thought she knew. Making Bel's investigation more difficult for her, but more amusing for the reader are Bel's struggle with mid-life changes.

Bel Barrett is a fresh idea for an amateur sleuth. Her down to earth wit keeps the reader turning the page for more. This is the beginning of a original new series. I can't wait to read the next one.

I think this is a heroine for our times! This is not one of those young, pouty-lipped, long-legged, blondes with whom every other male character falls in love. This is a real character with whom you want to meet for lunch and dish the dirt. This will be one of those you pass on to other female friends of a "certain age." I don't think men will like this one. They just won't get it. I also like the use of letters and emails to start off each chapter. It really helps move the story.

I started THE M WORD with great enthusiasm and, clearly, this mystery has its merits. The writing style of the narrative is excellent, though the dialogue often sounds stilted. The premise is clever, though the murderer--no, I won't give away the ending--seemed to be implausible, even as far as murderers go. (A good test of the plausibility of murderers in mystery books, I have found, is whether the reader can begin to imagine that particular character as the wrongdoer. Here, it would be impossible to link the crime to the resolution, and any clues are too few and too unconnected.)

Author Jane Isenberg writes with great passion about her protagonist's love of New York City. This part of the novel, for me, was the greatest display of her writing talent, as well as the part of the entire story that resonated the best.

On the other hand, she places most of the tale in a community college in New Jersey, and that actually begs the question: How many potential readers truly are interested in such a setting, regardless of how well she communicates it? Certainly, it doesn't come close to the Archy McNally mysteries in Palm Beach, or Simenon or Agatha Christie.

Still, Jane Isenberg shows enough skill as an author that I certainly will read another of her Bel Barret mysteries before coming to a conclusion about whether I want to continue with this series.

Women over 50 are alive and solving murders while having hot flashes! The book is fun and held my interest until the very end. I hope more are on the way!