Ada Madison (Camille Minichino). The Square Root of Murder (2011) We are in summer school at Henley College, one of the last remaining universities for women, which is facing momentous changes when co-education begins with the Fall semester. The most detested professor on campus, Dr Appleton of the Chemistry Department, is murdered. Dr Sophie Knowles of the Mathematics Department solves the case, mostly by handing useful clues to the cops after sussing out their relevance and thereby figuring out what other clues she needs and perhaps where to find them. The puzzle is quite good, the resolution involves the now-mandatory near-death experience of a last-ditch attack on the sleuth by the perpetrator, and a several of the red herrings lead to resolutions of sub-plots. There is the fey but practical friend of the sleuth, the macho but sensitive boyfriend, the students who should know better, the cop who’s a buddy and the one who isn’t, and so on.
So, given a pretty good concept for setting and a plot, and the usual cast of genre-characters, how does Madison handle it? Merely average. A beach-book, you can read it with half your attention on something else. The academic setting is merely sketched, the ambience is suggested by scattered brand references, adjectives appear where they aren’t needed, the characters are vague and nebulous. Knowles is a puzzle-setter by avocation, but we don’t see any of them (it would have added a nice layer of diversion). Back when pulp fiction came in magazines, this would have been ruthlessly edited down to novella length. As it is, it’s a lazy read. Not unpleasant, but not exactly an attention grabber. Later printings included some puzzles. *½
So, given a pretty good concept for setting and a plot, and the usual cast of genre-characters, how does Madison handle it? Merely average. A beach-book, you can read it with half your attention on something else. The academic setting is merely sketched, the ambience is suggested by scattered brand references, adjectives appear where they aren’t needed, the characters are vague and nebulous. Knowles is a puzzle-setter by avocation, but we don’t see any of them (it would have added a nice layer of diversion). Back when pulp fiction came in magazines, this would have been ruthlessly edited down to novella length. As it is, it’s a lazy read. Not unpleasant, but not exactly an attention grabber. Later printings included some puzzles. *½
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