Academic Setting?

An interesting similarity between this book and the last is that, unlike other mystery books I have read, both main characters call in outside help—Harriet calls Wimsey and Kate brings in her detective friend to help solve the case. However, Kate also calls a distant relative (her niece’s fiancé whom she doesn’t know well) to help assist her in the matter as well so that he may act as outside objective help in clearing Emanuel’s name—asking questions of others that she may not be able to. She cannot—will not—believe Emanuel is guilty and will do everything in her power in order to see that his name is cleared. (She doesn’t talk of clearing Nicola’s name (Emanuel’s wife). (I wonder why? Perhaps it’s because he’s the primary suspect, but at the same time, Nicola is second to him…) Kate’s confidence in his innocence convinces the reader that there is no possible way that he could be the murderer (and then watch at the end of the book that it turns out to be him in some twisted scheme!). However, even Emanuel believes his story “sounds crazy when you say it” because he claims to have been briskly walking around the reservoir during the time the crime was committed—like he did in his younger days (that’s certainly suspicious). The strange thing is that Nicola, his wife, claimed to be in the park during the time of the murder when she was supposed to be at her analysis appointment (with another doctor of course). To me, this puts a big target on her back, but Kate seems determined to find man X who was connected with Janet Harrison in some way and knew of her psychoanalyst sessions. She is overly confident in this respect because there is no real evidence in his existence except a picture of a male in his thirties found in Janet’s purse (he looks to be around Janet’s age; she was in grad school). Still, Kate is blind to the possibility of it actually being one of her friends, even though I’ll admit it seem absurd that they’d commit murder in their own apartment (or maybe that’s what they want you to think??).

Having read all of this information, the novel still hasn’t been set in the college (academic setting). I’m beginning to think that for a book to be classified under the academic mystery genre, it just has to involve an academic setting in some way. In this case, the victim, Janet, was a student at a college in which an English professor, Kate, recommended her to a psychoanalyst whose office she was murdered in. So far, there have been no other connections to school though and the suspect list is very limited. Still perhaps the investigation will lead Kate to interrogate some of the students at the school in order to know more about Janet’s whereabouts because she is still a big mystery thus far. This could possibly lead to a great deal more suspects…