Matricide at St. Martha's (Thorndike Large Print General Series) - Softcover

Edwards, Ruth Dudley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006493289 ISBN 13: 9780006493280

Publisher: Thorndike Pr, 1995

Synopsis

St. Martha's College, Cambridge, had been staggering along on a shoestring for decades. Then alumna Alice Toon leaves her old school a huge fortune. The dons immediately fall to fighting over the spoils. The Virgins, led by Dame Maud, believe the bequests should be spent on scholarships. The Dykes -- fewer in number but better streetfighters--want to raise a center of Gender and Ethnic Studies. The Old Women (mostly men) dream of fine vintages to be laid down in a decent new wine cellar. Impasse!They've reckoned without the Bursar, Jack Troutbeck. She elects to infiltrate her own agent, Robert Amiss, a former civil servant with a talent for sorting things out. No sooner does he arrive on the scene where the Virgins are getting the upper hand than Dame Maud is murdered, leading us into "An acidly funny romp... Superbly bitchy on the none-too-fragrant groves of academe."--Mike Ripley, Daily Telegraph

About this title

About the Author

Dr Ruth Dudley Edwards was born and brought up in Dublin, Ireland. Since she graduated she has lived in England, where she has been a teacher, a Cambridge postgraduate student, a marketing executive, a civil servant and, finally, a freelance writer, journalist and broadcaster.An historian and prize-winning biographer, her recent non-fiction includes the authorized history of The Economist, a portrait of the British Foreign Office and a book about the newspaper world of the mid-twentieth century. She uses her knowledge of the British establishment in her satirical crime novels: targets so far include the civil service, gentlemen's clubs, Cambridge colleges, the House of Lords, the Church of England, publishing, literary prizes and - always - political correctness. She has three times been short-listed for awards from the Crime Writers' Association.

From Publishers Weekly

This sixth outing for former civil servant and amateur sleuth Robert Amiss finds him installed in a one-year fellowship at threadbare St. Martha's Women's College, Cambridge, thanks to rough, tough Ida "Jack" Troutbeck, the college bursar and an old friend. Arguing over a recent multimillion-dollar bequest, the faculty is divided into three camps, crudely labeled by Jack as "Virgins, Dykes and Old Women." The first, the academics loyal to the presiding Mistress, are under attack by the Dykes, who, led by two women professors, want the money used for a Gender and Ethnic Studies Center. The Old Women are men, including a wimpy embroidery expert and a cleric, desiring nothing more than updated, cushy quarters. High feelings and hot words escalate. The Mistress is murdered, bringing the police, who are under the bumbling direction of a Bible-quoting ignoramus inspector totally at sea in this milieu. A second killing occurs before the inspector, with some quiet guidance from Amiss, makes an almost perfunctory arrest. Detection and suspense take a back seat to Edwards's (Clubbed to Death) acidly witty send-up of feminists, dumb cops and all matters politically correct.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Thorndike Pr
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0006493289
• ISBN 13: 9780006493280
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224