Tropic of Murder

by Lev Raphael, Anthony Bidulka (Foreword by)

Overview

A Nick Hoffman / Academic Mystery, Book 6 - It's winter, but academic madness is in full bloom at the State University of Michigan. Untenured professor Nick Hoffman is desperately trying to keep out of the way as three senior professors battle to be the chair of his department. They all hate each other and all demand his support in an atmosphere of intense crisis. The situation implodes when an emergency meeting turns the department upside down.

Nick is left desperate to make a quick getaway, so his partner Stefan suggests an idyllic week at a Caribbean Club Med. The island of Serenity, however, proves to be anything but serene. Once again, Edith Wharton scholar Nick Hoffman, who grew up in New York City and was never even mugged, finds himself face-to-face with murder.

In this sixth novel in the series, Lev Raphael, Lambda Award winner, amuses and delights on campus and on vacation. Included in this new edition, a foreword by Anthony Bidulka (Russell Quant Mysteries).

"Author Lev Raphael knows quite a lot about the dismal swamps of academe and the sunlit beaches of the Caribbean. The time he has obviously spent in these places make it possible for him to write vividly - and wittily - about both, with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek." - Lambda Book Report

"Funny, cynical, and bittersweet, the new Nick Hoffman mystery will be eagerly pounced on by Raphael's many fans." - Lauren Henderson, My Lurid Past

"Lev Raphael has done it again - another mordantly witty mystery featuring everyone's favourite acerbic English professor, Nick Hoffman. Relax with Tropic of Murder and take an entertaining, exotic Club Med vacation without even having to get out of your favorite chair." - Dean James, Decorated to Death

"Beguiling and funny." - Washington Post

"Raphael keeps us turning pages with mouthwatering descriptions of buffets and a paradise brimming with cheerful attendants; he ratchets up tension with rumors of ghosts and some very substantial fellows threatening to trade blows." - Booklist

"Raphael's wit is sharp as ever." - Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781951092825
Publisher:	Requeered Tales
Publication date:	11/29/2022
Series:	A Nick Hoffman / Academic Mystery , #6
Pages:	246
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Lev Raphael is the author of 26 books in a dozen genres from memoir to mystery. His first book of short stories Dancing on Tisha B'Av won a Lambda Literary Award. He's published hundreds of stories, essays, articles, and book reviews in a wide range of newspapers, magazines and journals. Lev has won Amelia's Reed Smith Fiction Prize and International Quarterly's Crossing Boundaries Prize for Innovative Prose, awarded by novelist D.M. Thomas, author of The White Hotel. His suspense novel Assault with a Deadly Lie was a Midwest Book Award finalist.Lev's fiction and essays have appeared in over 24 anthologies in the U.S. and England, and are taught at colleges and universities around the country. His fiction has been analyzed in scholarly journals, books, and conferences like MLA. Special Archives at Michigan State University's Library purchased his literary papers and updates them yearly. Lev has reviewed for the Detroit Free Press, the Washington Post and other papers.

In 1999 Anthony Bidulka left a professional accounting career to pursue writing and never looked back. His books have been nominated for Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Awards, Saskatchewan Book Awards, a ReLit award, and Lambda Literary Awards. Flight of Aquavit was awarded the Lambda Literary Award for Best Men's Mystery, making Bidulka the first Canadian to win in that category. His newest book, Going to Beautiful, he describes as a love letter to living on the prairies (oh, and with a few murders tossed into the mix).

Editorial Reviews

English prof Nick Hoffman takes a break from his academic woes-but not from sleuthing-when a Club Med getaway turns lethal. As if threats and a mugging (Burning Down the House, 2001) weren't trouble enough, now Hoffman is faced with State University of Michigan's provost Merry Glinka's peremptory appointment of Byron Summerscale to chair English, American Studies, and Rhetoric (EAR). Summerscale makes it clear that he doesn't consider Nick a team player, preferring wannabe jocks like Larry Rick, Les Peterman, and Martin Wardell. So Nick's longtime lover, Stefan Borowski, suggests moving up their Caribbean vacation, and the two depart for the tropical paradise of Serenity. What Nick wants is a week of fun in the sun without department politics or nagging doubts brought on by his hetero crush on Canadian Studies dreamboat Juno Dromgoole. What he gets is an unexpected appearance by Peter de Jonge-the grad student who hassled him back home about investigating a conspiracy involving Nick's assault, Juno's not-so-accidental car crash, SUM's Whiteness Studies Program, the appointment of departmental liaisons to spy on each other on behalf of the administration-and of course the inevitable corpse. Another trip into crime-solving and his growing discomfort at SUM leave Nick wondering whether he's really in the right line of work. Raphael's wit is sharp as ever, though his complicated plot yields a solution far too pedestrian for its build-up.

Kirkus Reviews