Customer Reviews

The student body

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The Student Body is an excellent academic mystery. The college setting and English Dept. intriques come across as authentic. But as an old-fashioned mystery, The Student Body has a number of flaws.

Number one big problem is the identity of the murderer. I had that bagged very early in the novel. Four scenes held all the essential clues.

Then there is another problem with a supposed major clue that the amateur sleuth stumbles across much later in the book. I simply can't see this

particular clue working as well as it does.

And, then there is the irritating issue of the setting of Bowmouth College. How big is Bowmouth? The map provided in the frontispiece depicts a little place. And, the early chapters seem to indicate a smallish Maine liberal arts college with a small medical school. But as the story progresses, Bowmouth College seems to grow and grow. By about page 200, the college is sporting a Faculty of Forestry. And, there are libraries everywhere. In short, the setting just isn't nailed down.

As for the sleuth Sarah Deane, I kept forgetting her name. For some reason, Sarah just isn't memorable enough.

All in all, an interesting story but a bit too transparent with a dumb ending.

The campus of Maine's Bowmouth College looks like a picture postcard of New England-snow-covered lawns, students in colorful ski parkas, icicles dangling on the ivied halls. Sarah Deane-English Fellow with an honorary degree in sleuthing-expects to spend a quiet term here taking some graduate courses and doing a little teaching.But then Sarah finds that someone's organized an advanced course in murder. The first lesson comes when a woman student is found frozen into a prize-winning snow sculpture during Carnival weekend. The second is served up with a cozy cup of poisoned cocoa. And when the clues point straight to an English department already rife with rivalries, Sarah realizes that a little learning can be a very dangerous thing...