Pythagorean Crimes

When Stefanos Kantartzis is found dead in his home in Athens in 1929 , his closest friend, mathematician Michael Igerinos, becomes the obvious and only suspect in his murder. The dead man had had an affair with Igerinos’s ex-wife, and, more recently, had begun a relationship with Igerinos’s former mistress. Told mostly in flashbacks, Michaelides’s less-than-gripping mystery debut begins with Igerinos’s first encounter with Kantartzis at the Second International Congress of Mathematicians, held in Paris in 1900. Since the sleuthing is secondary to the author’s efforts to engage the reader in the intricacies and disputations of higher mathematics, the book’s appeal will be largely limited to hardcore math fans. (Sept.)