[.ca] Little Miss Evil: A Nick Hoffman Mystery (ISBN 0802733425)

From Amazon.com:
Nick Hoffman, the crime-solving Edith Wharton scholar who's starred in three previous mysteries by Lev Raphael, still doesn't have tenure. His boyfriend Stefan's position in the English department at the State University of Michigan is a little more secure, but Stefan's career as a novelist is stalled in traffic, and the appointment of the gratuitously nasty Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Camille Cypriani--"a cross between Anita Brookner and Judith Krantz"--to a newly endowed chair in the department isn't doing much for their relationship. But that may also have something to do with the strange attraction that Nick, who's never been sexually interested in women, suddenly feels for Juno Dromgoole, the outsized and outrageous professor who's counting on his support in her quest for chairmanship of the department. The English and Rhetoric faculty are already in an uproar over downgrades in status and pay, and on the heels of Camille's controversial appointment, a rumor that a new department of "White Studies" is in the offing sweeps the campus, further highlighting the intense rivalries and petty politics of the university. Then Camille is strangled with a leopard-print scarf that looks suspiciously like Juno's, and Nick's own life is threatened. It falls to Nick's cousin Sharon, a plucky woman whose problems are a lot graver than academic infighting, to point him in the right direction and wrap up the somewhat muddled plot. Raphael is fast with the wisecracks and heavy with the references to pop culture. He's clearly spent a lot of time watching slasher movies and reading suspense thrillers, which fits neatly with the oversubscribed class Nick teaches on the mystery novel but detracts from the narrative's pacing. It may be time for Raphael to take Nick out of the ivied halls and put his smarts to work in another setting. But if murder in the groves of academe is your thing, consider Little Miss Evil as an extra credit assignment. --Jane Adams

fun, funny academic satire:
This week I (finally) read Lev Raphael's LITTLE MISS EVIL (2000), the 4th in his Nick Hoffman series. If anyone on the \oDorothy-L\c list hasn't yet read it: do so, it's lots of fun, especially if you like send-ups of academe. Like Nick, I'm an English professor at a state college, so I got a real kick out of the absurdist drama of academic politics in the midst of which Nick struggles to figure out who is harassing him and his lover Stefan, who killed an unpopular colleague, and what the heck is going on with his own unexpected feelings toward the sexy, brassy, over-the-top Juno.

Wonderful realistic view of academics:
There is trouble in the State University of Michigan EAR (English, American Studies, and Rhetoric) department and Nick Hoffman, a non-tenured professor who always seems to find himself surrounded by murder, is in the middle of it. Someone is stalking him, everyone is upset about a new endowed chair, and murder is once again in the air. Using a professor who teaches a class in mystery allows Lev Raphael (the author) to have Nick name-drop all of the latest mystery authors, along with Virginia Wolfe, Edith Warton, Dark Passages, and Titanic with equal humor. I found myself laughing out loud when Nick (after spending too long on Janet Evanovich) wondered if he should simplify his diet (his partner, Stephan set him straight--Stephanie Plum is no role model). The academic setting is brutally realistic. Unlike business, the University really is a zero sum game and professors play to win--not that there is much joy even in the winning. Still, Nick keeps his sense of humor and deepens his relationships with Stephan, his cousin Sharon, and the strangely attractive Professor Juno Dromgoole (is there a certain Dickensian quality to Raphael's naming?).

Pretty decent academic satire:
Maybe you need to be familiar with the academic world to appreciate Raphael's books. It might also help to have lived in a Midwestern college town. Nevertheless, he gets those realities down pretty well and makes for an entertaining read. Who really cares whether it falls into the category of "mystery" or something else? Kind of on the light side but I think that's the point.

Dessert: A dash of Midwest, academia, Jewish, gay & mystery:
Lev Raphael's stories I find delightfully entertaining. I read "Little Miss Evil" back to back with "Death of a Constant Lover" which is probably the recommended course of reading. Alas, I've missed Lev's publications since "Let's Get Criminal," but I have added those overlooked to my wish list. There are enough reviews giving away the plot or criticizing a variation from correct mystery/crime line. Raphael is unconventional, an academic who is suppose to broaden us, so I enjoyed the reading-ride. I openly chuckled on the bus and in a restaurant, and wiped my eyes too with other emotions stirred. The Nick Hoffman series should have a wide appeal and including anyone connected with academia or those educated higher ups that can enjoy laughing at themselves. I've been recommending Raphael to client's and friends connected with the University of Chicago, as I'm sure not everything is just Ravelstein in Hyde Park. I like the character's Nick and Stefan, they remind me of people I know; my medical doctor and his boyfriend who recently found out about his own Madeline Albright-esque Jewish roots. These characters set standards for a burgeoning gay community, one that is looking for icons. A community so youth-oriented in an age of steroids and viagra, and that hereto sadly seems to be mostly fodder to hypnotizing Leni Riefenstahl-like advertisements. I prefer broader American Dream icons, even if they are characters in a novel like Stefan and Nick, who aspire for higher plateaus, teaching our young, making a home, and a creating lasting relationships. These two just happen to be even more enlightening for readers as they are also a Jewish couple living in the American Midwest. Hence, The Nick Hoffman series belongs in every Temple library too.

Accuracy in Academia:
As academic life and the academics who live it become more bizarre with each passing craze-to wit postmodern rejections of science, administrative romances with accountability indexes, the promulgation of vision statements and mission statements ad infinitum, the seductiveness of distance learning-Lev Raphael's Nick Hoffman mysteries morph from satire to prophecy without losing a trace of their ability to make you laugh out loud. Case in point: Little Miss Evil, whose outlandish accuracy when it comes to such matters as mercenary departmental appointments, administrative fixations on fads like White Studies, and the general debasement at state universities of the liberal arts I can sadly vouch for. Since the tides of corporatism in the academy may well be irreversible, laughing along with Lev should help keep you sane. George Wolf Lincoln, NE