Murder Is an Art (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Adding to the small but tasty list of mysteries set on college campuses (which include Quieter Than Sleep, The Northbury Papers, and Amanda Cross: The Collected Stories) comes Murder Is an Art. In this fine novel of academe, Bill Crider introduces us to Dr. Sally Good, who heads the English and fine arts departments at Hughes Community College near the Texas Gulf Coast. It's the kind of school where the most popular classes are the ones held in conjunction with nearby prisons, but there are other advantages: the faculty can write articles on Buddy Holly for magazines like Golden Disc instead of becoming mired in pompous literary subjects.

Murder enters the campus scene when a popular art professor's death is linked to sexual shenanigans and/or Satanism. In typical genre style, it's Dr. Good and her 1950s-loving colleague Jack Neville who put aside minor things like running departments and teaching classes in order to track down the killer. Crider, who clearly knows the terrain, makes his academic community amusing as well as moving. --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly

Best known for his Sheriff Dan Rhodes series, Crider here introduces Dr. Sally Good, chair of the division of arts and humanities at a small college in Texas. Though bickering is normal among the professors, someone goes too far when the art department chair, Val Hurley, is found murdered in his office. Suspecting a connection with the disappearance of a controversial painting, Good grows disappointed with police efforts and decides to solve the case with the help of her colleague, Professor Jack Neville. Hurley had recently come before the college president for painting a student, Tammi Thompson, in the nude, and police fear Tammi's jealous husband may have committed the murder. Another suspect is A.B.D. Johnson, a muckraking colleague who was appalled by Val's cavalier use of school funds. While Crider's quirky characters entertainAjust as did the characters in his previous campus series, featuring Professor Carl BurnsAit seems odd that these academic gumshoes are never in a classroom and spend little time dealing with students. Their sleuthings provide modest fun, while the novel's ending offers an unexpected tinge of sadness.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 243 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (April 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312199279
• ISBN-13: 978-0312199272
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,752,749 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More Wonderful Characters from Crider, May 26, 1999

By	Benjamin Potter "Loom & Wheel" (Mulberry Grove, IL USA) - See all my reviews

Bill Crider has started yet another winning combination with Sally Good and Jack Neville. They leave the reader asking, will we see them again? They are great new friends. The characters are the high point of this new novel from the author of the Dan Rhodes series and the Truman Smith private eye novels. MURDER IS AN ART displays the readable style Crider fans have come to expect. What we don't expect is the broadcast of part of the solution that is usually hidden well enough to keep the reader guessing. This minor glitch in the story line does not keep us from enjoying another winner from the master of the small town whodunnit. Take us back to Hughes soon, Dr. Crider.