Publisher's Weekly Review
Tate Cowlishaw, the droll narrator of Hill's fine first novel, may be legally blind, but he's clever enough to realize that the death of Randall "Scoot" Simkins, the dean of Parshall College in Grayford, N.C., was not suicide as the cops insist. For one thing, there were the three bullet holes in Simkins's head, as well as the fact that the man was justifiably hated by everyone he encountered as he guided Parshall from mediocrity into abysmal failure. Tate becomes an amateur sleuth to solve the crime in hopes of saving his own job as a business instructor at the college. His investigation is largely notable, though, for the bizarre quirks he discovers about his fellow members of the college community-and for the opportunities he finds to share mordant observations about the condition of higher education in America. The dead-on parody of academic jargon and the well-spun plot alone make this mystery worth reading. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
When educator Tate Cowlishaw sneaks into his boss' office, the last thing he expects is to find the man lying under his desk. The three bullet wounds in his head seem pretty obvious even to the legally blind Tate, so when the death is briskly ruled a suicide, the teacher takes the investigation into his own hands. The late dean of Parshall College was not particularly well liked, so suspects are plentiful, but with the future of the struggling college in question, motive is harder to decipher. Not receiving much help from the town's seemingly inept police department, Tate turns to his colleagues instead but soon finds that no one can be trusted. As the intrigue deepens, the body count rises, and the contradictory clues pile up, Tate finds himself in a race to catch a murderer before the murderer can catch him. Mystery and satire combine in Hill's debut, winner of the 2014 Nilsen Prize for a first novel. Hill's whodunit exposes a lackluster side of academia with a dry, witty humor, while frequent plot twists keep readers on their toes until the final pages.--Ophoff, Cortney Copyright 2015 Booklist
