From Publishers Weekly
The low-key sequel to One Dead Dean finds mild-mannered Carl Burns, English professor at a small denominational Texas college, perplexed by the new dean's campaign for political correctness. Burns's cronies, instructors Fox and Tomlin, ignore the new ban on smoking while discussing the impact of other new policies: a young male student being taken to student court by his girlfriend for "lookism," a term Burns and friends don't understand, and a famously sexist history instructor facing two sexual harassment suits. The history prof falls to his death from his second-story office window, and his widow accuses Fox's and Tomlin's wives of running after her husband. Asked by the police chief to help with the case, Burns investigates the two new people on campus, the dean and a recently hired English instructor, while also keeping his eye out for other possible suspects. Although Crider's leisurely plot is laced with pleasant, dry humor, the novel fails to gather itself into a memorable whole.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
YA-Political correctness at a backwater college in Texas comes in for some lively but good-natured ribbing in this mystery. First, the new feminist dean shakes up the conservative campus, then the well-known professor she has hired is generally regarded with suspicion by his new colleagues for coming to such an obscure school. Soon a veteran prof is pushed from a window, and the chair of the English department, Carl Burns, gets involved. Throughout, he and the police chief are jealous of each other's attentions toward the new campus librarian. Sharp personalities, realistic dialogue, humor, and an uncomplicated plot with an easy vocabulary combine for a readable book that teens will enjoy.
Hugh McAloon, R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Frederick, MDCopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
