This is an amusing novel about the murder of two very unpleasant, well-disliked brothers and suicides of three very likable
people; of bitter political faculties' battles (the typical bloodletting and backstabbing of the disappointed, the power-hungry and the sadistic); and the final bitter sacrifice that brings a kind of redemption and peace to the faculty of English and American Literature at the little New England college where Mrs. Mallory comes to teach a semester-in-
residence about some women writers of the nineteenth century. She has never taught before, but plunges into the world of academe with the help of her friends there, and, with a mixture of bewilderment and curiosity, eventually learning to swim above it all. She makes friends with the detective in charge of the investigation -- he wishes to make it more, but her deeper loyalties and ties, her insecurity, her memories of her husband (she is a widow; the detective, a victim of divorce), all conspire to keep it rather less than the fullness of even a close
friendship. Throughout the book, one is presented with various dilemmas -- love versus honesty, love versus duty, love versus friendship, love versus career, love versus loyalty, truth versus dishonesty, tolerated or condoned. There is a convenient solution and a true one. Disappointment lies heavy in the air at times and passion creates more problems than it solves. The philosphical questions it raises alone make this book worth reading, over and above the intrinsic interest of the story. Reading it is a very pleasant task, I might add.