Academic Murder

Who among the Fellows seated at the High Table of an ancient if relatively obscure Cambridge college could possibly have committed so indecorous and unsporting an act as murder? To say nothing of multiple murder? Not to mention so unmentionable an act as rape? First there is the scholar done in by arsenic in his port, then the inoffensive Mutton, followed by a failed attempt on the ""quintessential don'' Fenchurch, who is compelled by these unseemly circumstances to turn sleuth. Professional jealousy, naked ambition and sheer unpleasantness lie behind the infamous deeds; and the miscreant's curious prediliction for getting himself up in ladies' bedroom slippers of lilac brocade with tulle pompoms will eventually seal his doom. Frequently the humor in this first novel is ``academic,'' elephantine, and the display of classical and literary learning can be a burden. But if the narrative pace is somnolent, the digressions into medieval and Renaissance history and architecturewhere the author's heart seems to lieare engaging, learned and lively. January 2