Dying Fall

 Dying Fall (1995) by Judith Cutler

As followers of the blog know, I am sucker for academic mysteries and this one had been on my "To Be Found" list for quite some time (possibly since the 90s when it came out...). I love a good murder or two in the ivory towers. Only William Murdock College, inner-city college in Birmingham, isn't exactly the ivory towers of Oxford or Cambridge. It's a hodge-podge of buildings with only one very ugly tower of sorts. Sophie Rivers, our heroine, teaches English and often works late grading all those papers that come with the job. On just such a night, a tired Sophie gets in the elevator and doesn't notice until it's traveled several levels that there's a body slumped against the elevator's wall.

At first she thinks Wajid, one of the computer students, is sick. But when she jostles him, he falls forward and she sees the knife sticking out of his back. The police are apt to believe that there has been some trouble within the Muslim community and Wajid came out on the wrong side of the dispute. But then Sophie's best friend dies on the site of new Music Center--which though already in use appears to still be under construction. George's death is put down as an accident, but Sophie is convinced there's been foul play. The police take her seriously once she's attacked and another student provides her with clues from Wajid's computer notes. But will her police guard be able to keep her safe from a killer determined to escape detection...even if it means killing one more time.

I wanted to like this one more than I did. Sophie is an odd character, but one I took to despite her oddness. I found her reactions quite believable and while she did come across many of the primary clues in the mystery, she wasn't trying to play detective. She just wanted the police to take George's death more seriously than they were and wanted to protect the friends who were coming under suspicion. My primary difficulties with the story were two-fold. First, as soon as the culprit came in view I knew exactly where things were headed with that person. They might as well have been labeled with a neon sign that said "Looky here. The Killer has come on stage." And second, there were too many scenes (including part of the wrap-up) where I felt as though I had come in on conversations that had been in progress and some of the important information had already been handed out. It was as if certain things didn't need to be said because we already knew them. Only we didn't. Knowing who the killer was didn't mean I knew exactly why and wherefore...and too many of the whys and wherefores weren't explained properly. ★★★

It appears that this is the first of a series starring Sophie which baffles me a bit--because, again, while I like her, I don't see her as the series amateur detective type. 

(Thanks to Kate @ Cross Examining Crime for this academic mystery--which arrived as part of my Secret Santa bundle in 2019. See Kate, I do get round to my TBR mountains...eventually. 😏)

First lines: Seven-thirty on a Thursday night. The wind's slashing rain across the ill-fitting windows and rocking the whole tower block. [aka: It was a dark and stormy night.]

Last lines: And I don't know. I just don't know.

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Deaths = 4 (one stabbed; one hit on head; one blown up; one fell from height)