By Frequent Angsh: Magnif-Cn

I'm a grad student and my mom is a professor, and we both love mysteries with academic settings. Ok, I'll admit it: We both love mysteries where evil professors and college administrators get murdered. The murder victim in "By Frequent Anguish" is neither an evil professor nor an evil college administrator - and she isn't even evil - but that's the only thing wrong with this book. In all other respects, it's lovely. The writing is so intelligent and witty that it lifts the book miles above the average mystery. The other thing that lifts it is the emotional depth. In so many mysteries, the protagonist stumbles across a dead body, and it's all "Wow, a dead body! I better start sleuthing!" There's little acknowledgment that violent death is a huge violation; it destroys our sense of trust and security in the world. In "By Frequent Anguish," the hero is a professor whose wife died of cancer. He has spent the past several years cautiously rebuilding his faith in a benevolent universe, only to have it shattered again when his beautiful young love is killed. He determines to find her killer not because sleuthing is such a groovy game, but because that is the only thing he can do to bring any sense of balance back into his world. Underneath the puzzle - which is a good one - and underneath all the genuinely witty, erudite prose is a seriously moving story. I am definitely looking forward to the next book in this series.