Lavin, Audrey: Eloquent Blood

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When a graduate student and a border collie turn up dead in the office of one of Midfield College's English professors, Visiting Professor Mary Beth Goldberg finds something better to do with her time than grading papers. She and her bike-repairing, Bartlett's Quotations-quoting fiancé Tony turn into amateur sleuths to track down a killer among the pompous academics in her department. As it turns out, a number of her colleagues would probably jump at the chance to kill their department chairman, but none of them has an obvious motive for wanting the victim dead.

My reaction to Eloquent Blood was decidedly mixed. On the one hand, I very much like the credible academic environment that the author, an academic herself, has created. Her protagonist, Mary Beth Goldberg, is likeable enough, and as a newly arrived member of Midfield College she could be made to have an interesting outsider's perspective of the college and the small town of Midfield, Ohio. There are occasional well-put turns of phrase. ("You could see that she had been a keen, maybe peachy, young woman with a keen, maybe peachy, hair-do twenty years ago, and she had seen no reason to change it.") And the mystery behind the murders is a decent one.

Unfortunately, there are a number of problems with the text as it stands that will prevent readers from fully enjoying the story. There are occasional logical problems. (At the very beginning of the book, for example Tony discovers the dead bodies and calls Mary Beth to tell her about the murders while en route to visiting her. But she's only two office doors down from the scene of the crime. No one would make a phone call in such a circumstance.) The dialogue can be awkward. ("You're right, Mary-Babe, and I know you'll hate me for being corny at a time like this, but there would be something so fitting in yon literary prof giving voice to that line from Macbeth, 'Out damned Spot! Out, I say!'") There is a dramatic, unprepared for shift in point of view in the middle of chapter eight. What is consistently troubling, however, is that Mary Beth, who has only been teaching at Midfield College for some two months and who is new to the community, is treated as if she has a long history in the area. She is surrounded by very close friends she can have only just met. She is credited with a more intimate knowledge of the campus and its history and denizens than she should have after so brief an acquaintance with them.

With more work, Eloquent Murder could be the start of a solid series of academic cozies. But it does need the work.