Book description
In classic noir tradition, English Professor Karen Pelletier gains a
client when her office door opens and Trouble walks in. The dog, a
Rottweiler, brings with him a famous Private Eye novelist and a problem.
And since Sunnye Hardcastle (a Patricia Cornwell lookalike) will be a
featured speaker in the English Department's upcoming conference on the
murder mystery (from a Feminist Perspective), Karen is intrigued. The
next thing you know, one midnight someone rushes out of the Enfield
library with an armload of rare books. In fact, the library is missing a
truckload of its treasures. Then a theif is found dead in the stacks,
his neck broken. With a real private eye on the case, the hunt is on-for
the manuscript of Hammett's famous novel, The Maltese Falcon, for the
missing books, and for potential murder suspects. This sparkling fifth
entry in an award-nominated series riffs the hardboiled genre and
several sacred icons. What is truth? What is fiction? No one seems
certain. Perhaps most frustrated is Karen's boyfriend, Massachusetts
police lieutenant Charlie Piotrowski, a man having trouble dividing his
personal and professional life, let alone translating modern
academic-speak. But then, don't we all? In her fifth Prof. Karen
Pelletier mystery, Dobson (Quieter Than Sleep) offers an aca¬demic novel
both gutsy and romantic. Sound contradictory? It is, thanks to
best-selling feminist author Sunnve Hardcastle, herself a dozen or so
contradictions, who comes to Enfield College in Massachusetts with her
rottweiler, Trouble, to speak on the hard-boiled women's detective novel
at an English department conference. But trouble dogs Sunnye. Lavishly
expensive texts and even a manuscript of Dashiell Ham¬nett's The Maltese
Falcon disappear, de¬spite a tight alarm system at the college li¬brary.
Karen ends up hiding Sunnye from the local police, even though this
brings down the wrath of Lt. Charlie Piotrowski, Karen's he-man lover,
who's looking into the thefts. Murder muddles their affair, as well as
the criminal investigation, which leads to two houses holding fabulous
li¬braries, including many first editions, signed copies and manuscripts
with mar¬ginal notes. Dobson's obvious knowledge of, and respect for,
mystery and detective fiction is immense. She takes the reader on a
glorious tour, describing everything from comic books to anthologies.
Even the most moral mystery fans will understand why a person would want
to purloin even one or two of these treasures. Joanne Dobson is the
author of the Professor Karen Pelletier mystery series from Doubleday
and Poisoned Pen Press. She won an Agatha nomination for QUIETER THAN
SLEEP, the first book in the series, the novels have been widely
reviewed, including in the NEW YORK TIMES, and in 2001 the adult-
readers division of the New York Library Association named her Noted
Author of the Year, as the writer whose books they most enjoyed
recommending to their patrons. For many years Joanne was an English
Professor at Fordham University, teaching literature and creative
writing. Her scholarly research and writing focused on Emily Dickinson
and on the popular fiction of 19th-century American women writers. She
now writes full-time and teaches creative writing at the Hudson Valley
Writers Center. You may contact Joanne at: www. joannedobson. com .
