Murder at the MLA

As a Chicago homicide detective, Boaz Dixon has just about seen it all--or so he thinks until corpses begin accumulating at the Hotel Fairfax during the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association. The investigation takes him into a world unlike any he has ever encountered--the byzantine milieu of the contemporary academy, with its arcane jargon, endless posturings, power struggles, and puzzling factionalisms. To get to the bottom of these murders, Boaz decides to enlist some assistance. Enter Nancy Cook, a bright and resourceful assistant prof from Yale, whom Boaz quickly recruits as his guide and translator. With Nancy inserting her specific slant on things, Boaz and his fellow cops can confront the baffling questions in the case. Why had the Wellesley department chair, Susan Engleton, collapsed in her hotel suite? And Michael Alcott, the University of Arizona's formidable purveyor of the latest trends in critical theory: why had his body plummeted ten floors to the atrium lobby? Was this the work of a disgruntled hotel staff member, out to get even with his employer? Or could the culprit--or culprits--come from the ranks of the assembled academics? And, the most disturbing question of all: will the mayhem continue?