Roiling academic politics at a fictional branch of the City University of New York set the scene for a reasonably competent, if unexciting debut mystery by the author of Joseph Smith: The First Mormon as well as several children's books. Sharp-eyed, soft-hearted, widowed sociology professor Vinnie Trent questions her colleagues under cover of arranging a memorial for Professor Paul Baskin, who was found in a garbage bag with a fatal head wound. Vinnie hopes to draw suspicion away from her friend Sterling Neu, in whose office she found a bloody paperweight. As Vinnie leans that Paul, a man she thought charming, was a self-serving bully and seducer, her suspects expand to include a luckless colleague up for tenure, an appealing young guard with a criminal record, an outlaw bag lady and a shy student impregnated by the victim.
