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4.0 out of 5 stars
An Interesting Heroine You'll Enjoy, Jan 6 2004
Rarely do new mystery series begin with a heroine as interesting and as well portrayed as Professor Karen Pelletier is in Quieter than Sleep. Not surprisingly, the book was nominated for an Agatha award.Doctor Pelletier found herself pregnant as a teen in high school, and dropped out of her plans to go to Smith to marry her truck driver lover. After a difficult pregnancy and marital abuse, she puts her life together to raise her daughter as a single Mom while pursuing her academic career. Finally finding love with a cop in New York, she abandons him to follow her desire for a career to settle at tony, elite Enfield College in New England. Arriving at Enfield, she's the new kid on the English department block sharing responsibilities for 19th century American literature with an aggressive, pompous womanizer who wants to discuss more than literature with her. She finds herself attracted to all the wrong men, and attracts attention from men she would rather avoid. Ah well, back to those term papers! She's so self absorbed that she doesn't quite notice her effect on others or what is going on around her. Told from that obtuse perspective, the surrounding developments take on an opaque characteristic that makes the story more enjoyable. As to genre, Quieter than Sleep reminded me most of Jane Langton's mysteries. But Quieter than Sleep has more action and less intellectual content than the Langton works do. I actually would have enjoyed reading more about Emily Dickinson than the book provides. Like Ms. Langton's books, there's not much mystery in Quieter than Sleep. Between the subtitle of the book and events that occurred in the first few pages, the motive and identity of the guilty party were soon evident to me. Quieter than Sleep is quite good on academic politics, and made them seem as interesting as possible. I was pleased to learn two new words from this book, something I cannot ever remember happening with a mystery novel before. The story is enlivened with some fine writing. The book begins with "I might as well admit it: I'm sick of desire. Of love, sex, and desire, and all their cumbersome baggage." Delightful quotes from Emily Dickinson also make their way into our heroine's thoughts. Each fine phrase makes the book stand out. The book sets up quickly. Our heroine is being bored to death by Randy Astin-Berger, the English professor you'll love to hate, at the faculty Christmas party. His topic? Sex and literature. Within a few pages, Astin-Berger is dead meat and the lives of many at Enfield will never be the same. From there, Karen Pelletier finds herself drawn into helping resolve the mystery while assisting those who have been harmed by the events. Along the way, you'll learn some interesting perspectives on Emily Dickinson. If I liked the book so much, why didn't I grade it as a five star effort? Basically, the plot development didn't work for me in many ways. First, the mystery should have been more mysterious for my taste. I like to have to wait until at least the second half of the book before knowing what is going on. Second, the book wastes too much time on red herrings that didn't really tempt me. Third, the police investigation seems over laden. I cannot imagine that the resources put into this case would have really been employed. Fourth, the tone is very detached. The book needed to grip the reader in the emotion of the events. It didn't. So I felt like I was reading a clever book about a murder mystery, rather than experiencing a murder mystery. As I finished the book, I wondered about how many times academic curiosities are being explored more for the ego of the experience than for finding the truth of the circumstances. I was reminded to avoid projecting my own needs onto the facts around me.
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