Murdering
Americans
A
Robert Amiss Mystery
Ruth Dudley Edwards
Poisoned
Pen Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59058-413-9 (1590584139)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-413-2 (9781590584132)
Publication Date: April 2007
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Academia (n.): a profession filled with bad food,
knee-jerk liberalism, and murder...
Being a member of the House of Lords and Mistress of St
Martha’s College in Cambridge might seem enough to keep
anyone busy, but Baroness (Jack) Troutbeck likes new challenges. When a
combination of weddings, work, and spookery deprives her of five of her
closest allies, she leaps at an invitation to become a Distinguished
Visiting Professor on an American campus.
With her head full of romantic fantasies inspired by 1950s Hollywood,
and accompanied by Horace, her loquacious and disconcerting parrot,
this intellectually-rigorous right-winger sets off from England
blissfully unaware that academia in the United States is dominated by
knee-jerk liberalism, contempt for Western civilization, and the
institutionalisation of a form of insane political-correctness.
Will the bonne viveuse Baroness Troutbeck be able to cope with the
culinary and vinous desert that is New Paddington, Indiana? Can this
insensitive and tactless human battering-ram defeat the thought-police
who run Freeman State University like a gulag? Does she believe the
late Provost was murdered? If so, what should she do about it? And will
she manage to persuade Robert Amiss—who describes himself
bitterly as Watson to her Holmes and Goodwin to her Nero
Wolfe—to abandon his honeymoon and fly to her side?
Review:
Murdering
Americans is the politically
incorrect title of the 11th mystery in the Robert Amiss (and "Jack"
Troutbeck) series by Ruth Dudley Edwards.
Those who attended college in the fifties no doubt have vivid memories
of their experiences being a combination of academic hard work and
youthful pleasure. From the sixties to the present day, we have watched
our children and grandchildren attend the colleges of their choice.
Reading this fictionalized story escorts the reader into a new reality.
Murdering
Americans takes place in a
solidly built, nice looking college in the abandoned steel town of New
Paddington, Indiana. The college, Freeman State University, has
deteriorated over the years from the principles on which it was
founded, that is the teachings of math, science, and history, freedom
of speech, diversity of thought and integration, and so on. Political
Correctness (with a capital "PC") has become their crushing ideology.
The only competition permitted by this college is who is the greater
victim.
Baroness "Jack" Troutbeck, though quite busy being a member of the
House of Lords and the Mistress of St. Martha’s College in
Cambridge, is always eager to face a new challenge should one present
itself. To her surprise and delight she has been invited to America as
a Distinguished Visiting Professor. She readily accepts, leaves London
and flies off to America, and on to Freeman State University. The
Baroness imagined the American colleges to be as she had viewed them in
the movies of the fifties. What a shock to find them bastions of the
liberal elite who have contempt for all things Western and who preside
over not an institute of higher learning but one of political
correctness. To some, no doubt, they are one and the same.
Jack is a brilliant, witty, and rather nice lady who is kind to
animals. But she is a complainer when things don't quite go her way.
Her plane was late because someone had to check Horace, her parrot, to
make sure he was not carrying bird flu, and that he was not a terrorist
because of some of the language he was using. Her chauffeur, Betsy,
drove on the wrong side of the road. After a fourteen-hour trip, she
wanted a little “pick-me-up” from a bar, any bar.
But it was Sunday and there no bars open, even in the hotel. Her
accommodations were unsatisfactory as they overlooked an active train
track. Then there's the tasteless American food. She enticed the
hotel’s chef and his wife to prepare food just for her, with,
of course, the right wine. And all this on her first day in the US. On
Monday she started in on the academic studies provided for the
students. She found that this college did not offer the standard
courses in literature and science but instead an array of programs in
political correctness. Because Christian Americans are at the root of
the world's problems, students need only to study the backgrounds and
cultures of blacks, gays and lesbians, Muslims, Jews, and other
oppressed minorities to understand why all countries in the world hate
America.
During her stay, the Baroness is involved in four murders of which she
has been inconveniently accused. She immediately calls for her friend
in need, Robert Amiss, who flies to her side to help her solve the
crimes.
Baroness Jack is a delightful character and with Robert at her side
they make a perfect duo in this entertaining and witty book. At the end
of Murdering
Americans they not only solve
the mystery of the murders, but also extract a promise from the founder
of the University to turn it around and once again make it into a truly
credible college.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Murdering Americans and to Poisoned Pen Press for providing an ARC of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2007 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read Murdering Americans? How would you rate it?
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Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), March 1999
ISBN-10: 1-89020-813-2 (1890208132)
ISBN-13: 978-1-89020-813-4 (9781890208134)
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Poisoned Pen Press (Trade Paperback), August 2008
ISBN-10: 1-59058-438-4 (1590584384)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-438-5 (9781590584385)
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Murdering Americans
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), April 2007
ISBN-10: 1-59058-413-9 (1590584139)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-413-2 (9781590584132)
Omnimystery
keywords for Murdering Americans
...
Location(s) referenced: Indiana.
