Lou Allin A Little Learning is a Murderous Thing

A Little Learning is a Murderous Thing

Lou Allin

Five Star, Apr 2005, $25.95, 281 pp.

ISBN: 159414253X

Copper University Victorian Literature Professor Maddie Temple always looks forward to the start of a new school after the summer vacation. However, this year her enthusiasm is a bit tempered by the demands of Flo Andrews, the empty department coordinator, who prefers to administer discipline than teach and the rants and rage of the Chair Malcolm Driscoll over the money spent (and his mind wasted) on SWINC, designed to help the handicap.

However, the first day turns deadly when an "A" student falls from a library window in what looks like a suicide. Not long afterward, Maddie finds her boss dying in his home. While the police believe that Flo, coveting Malcolm's job, is the prime suspect in what turns out to be a deadly poisoning, Maddie thinks otherwise. Temporarily the chair, she makes her own inquires into both deaths wondering if a SWINC supporter decided to eliminate a vocal influential opponent and where the tie to the dead student lies.

This interesting academic amateur sleuth mystery hooks the audience once they see how frustrating teaching at a university can be even without murder. The storyline moves forward at a fast pace when Maddie decides to prove that her despicable nitpicking peer Flo could not have killed the chair although she has a clear motive and opportunity. Lou Allin provides a fabulous look at university life in Upper Michigan inside a fine who-done-it.

Harriet Klausner