Orange Crushed : An Ivy League Mystery

Rating:
Summary: An excellent addition to the Ivy League series
Review: Writer Pamela Thomas-Graham leads two lives. She's a high power executive at CNBC, and she's the author of three successful mysteries. It's no wonder then that the main character of her series of Ivy League novels, Nikki Chase, is also dividing her time: during the day she's a Harvard professor of economics, but in her free time she's solving crimes like a pro. If the author can do, why not the lead character.

Her first book, A DARKER SHADE OF CRIMSON, set at Harvard, introduced Chase. In her second, BLUE BLOOD, Chase solved a Yale-based mystery. Now, ORANGE CRUSHED takes Chase to Princeton, where the plot reads like something right out of the Chronicle of Higher Education: top-ranking professors are being wooed away from one Ivy League to another.

In an effort to boost her lapsing credibility (in the wake of too much time solving mysteries in the previous two books and not enough time pursuing tenure), Chase accepts the invitation of Earl Stokes, a respected colleague, to participate in an academic conference at Princeton. Stokes's reputation as a scholar at the forefront of black studies has made him a hot ticket, and he is about to accept an offer to take a powerful position at Harvard. Before he can, the new building for the Center of Black Studies at Princeton is destroyed in a questionable fire, and Stokes's charred body is found in the remains. The suspects are many: his wife, angered by years of secret infidelities; his estranged son, never spoken of by Stokes; his competition at Harvard; and his competition at Princeton. Embroiled again, Chase, with the help of her brother and a Princeton alum, is on the hunt for Stokes's murderer. And the results of her sleuthing are shocking, to those at Old Nassau and to those in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Like Thomas-Graham herself, Chase is a savvy and well-respected expert in her field. She's a black female working in a world of white males --- and succeeding! Chase is an attractive character in a clever mystery that proves you never really know someone. Well worth the read.

--- Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara