The mayor of Toronto collapses during a speech and dies. Taking credit for it is the Society for Political Utopia, an ultra-secret, invitation only club at the University. Seeking to cover all investigative angles, the police place Clare Vengel, a rookie cop, undercover as a poli-sci student in the class of the prof thought to have started the society.Over the next week, 4 more political figures die of poisoning. Clare has to juggle being a student with a new flame and gathering info on the prof and the students in his Poli Real World class for her handler. The alleged killer sends obits to the newspaper and obit writer Annabelle, looking for some fame in her own drab world, strikes up a txt/email relationship in hopes of writing a book on the sop-called Utopia killings.
When the texting killer threatens Annabelle's niece, she finally goes to the cops who easily trace the source at the other end. This sort of nerd, hot to trot for a classmate, confesses, but Clare thinks he's covering for someone, but it could be anyone in the class. In a reveal along the lines of an old Agatha Christie, the real killer fesses up, Clare gets some grudging kudos from her handler, and word of a possible new assignment.
Wasn't really taken by this effort. Having spent some time on the other side of the desk at a university, I found the portrayal of the professor as entirely off the mark. Also thought that while Clare is the focal point of the story, I didn't really see her doing much other than stumbling over and over, but maybe that was Spano's intent. Not sure I'll be going out of my way to check out subsequent Clare Vengel novels.
East Coast Don
No comments:
Post a Comment