The Probability of Murder [by] Ada Madison
New York; Berkley Prime Crime [2012]
978-0-425-24667-2; $7.99
The Benjamin Franklin Hall, home of the Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics Departments, is famous for its Friday afternoon parties. This one is in celebration of the mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius, and a sophomore named Chelsea Derbin is demonstrating one of the things that made him famous, the Möbius strip. Onlookers include members of the various departments in the building, both faculty and students, including Math Department Chair Sophie Knowles. Chelsea’s presentation runs out of steam, and she looks to her professor, but, fortunately for Sophie, her main squeeze has just arrived – Bruce Granville, a medevac helicopter pilot. He comes with questions – What’s going on at Henley College’s library? There’s a whole fleet of city cop cars out in front. Then cell phones all over the room start ringing, and rumors spread about someone being taken away in an ambulance. The party breaks up as everyone leaves to find out what’s happening.
At the Library, Sophie and Bruce meet Bruce’s good buddy, Virgil Mitchell, one of Henley PD’s finest. Virgil tells them that the College’s reference librarian, Charlotte Crocker, one of Sophie’s dearest friends is dead. Her body had been found by a student who worked as her assistant. Virgil then begins to question Sophie about her knowledge of Ms. Crocker, definitely putting Sophie on the defensive. And it’s only the first time. Needless to say, Sophie’s and Bruce’s plans to have a romantic and educational weekend in Boston caves in, and Bruce leaves to join his buddies for a mountain climb in Vermont.
A few days before her death, Charlotte had given Sophie her duffle bag. It had sat in the corner of her office for a few days, and then Bruce picked it up and brought it to Sophie’s house when her brought her home, in shock because of Charlotte’s death. Now Sophie is being charmed by the duffle and its siren call provokes her open the bag. It’s full of money. Lots and lots of money. She hides it, wondering why her friend had so much cash in such a variety of bills.
Sophie feels it her duty to call the only relative of Charlotte’s she had ever met to tell him about Charlotte’s death. A few weeks back, Charlotte had asked if she could bring her nephew Noah to see the medevac outfit at the airport, where Bruce works. Bruce and his colleagues had really put on a good show for Charlotte and Noah. There’s a few sheets of paper in the duffle with phone numbers on them, and “Jeff/Noah” is written on one of them. Sophie calls the number. It’s early in the morning for the guy on the other end. He doesn’t seem to know what’s going on or who she is, and she figures this is Jeff, Noah’s roommate. The guy admits he’s Jeff, but that there is no Noah. He explains that he works at the snack bar at Boston College, and that Charlotte had come in one day and saw his ad to do odd jobs. She had paid him to play her nephew Noah. Sophie remembers the outing. Noah wasn’t very interested in the medevac business, and Charlotte seemed especially interested in the airfield. She realized that Charlotte had used her and Bruce. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. Her friend wasn’t a friend. She didn’t know anything about her. Who was this woman she thought she knew?
First, she calls her best friend Ariana, who comes over to cheer her up, with bags of goodies. They’ve been friends forever. Sophie tells her about the phone call and shows her the bag of money and they speculate on why the librarian might have had it. Ariana tells her she has to get rid of it because it’s bad luck, and probably also dangerous. Sophie takes it to Virgil after Ariana leaves.
Sophie occupies her time while Bruce is gone sleuthing around Charlotte’s death, with many pizzas shared with Virgil, as she finds out from him about Charlotte’s history of aliases, her history of crimes going back many years, her incarcerations, and more. Sophie follows the clues left in the duffle bag, finding out who some of her friends and associates were. She continuously checks in with Virgil as her house is broken into and various people become ubiquitous in her life.
Then Bruce’s party is lost in a blizzard on their mountain in Vermont, and Virgil and Sophie spend time together hoping and praying for the threesome’s safe return. They do come back, but injured. One is still in the hospital, but Bruce and the other, who are on the mend, spend time getting TLC in Sophie’s little house, which is great, because Sophie’s investigation gets her almost killed by someone she hadn’t expected to be involved until literally minutes before it happens.
This is a cozy little mystery from the mistress of the genre, Camille Minichino, writing under the pseudonym of Ada Madison. She also writes the miniature mysteries under the pseudonym of Margaret Grace. Her stuff is fun: neatly plotted with great characters. Highly recommended. ~ lss-r
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Library book.
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