The Day the Rabbi Resigned

In the midst of finding a new career, Rabbi Small encounters a suspicious death in the community, and, once again, the unorthodox sleuth is off on a search for a killer in the town of Barnard's Crossing. 50,000 first printing.

YA-- A revealing conversation between Rabbi Small and his wife at the beginning of the book invites readers right into their thoughts and feelings and gives a direction as to the man's future plans to teach in a college. Through little twists and turns in each succeeding chapter, the story becomes more complicated. The Rabbi himself seems incidental to the main plot well into the middle of the book, but it is actually he who puts his logical ``Talmudic'' mind to work to help solve the mystery of who has murdered Victor Joyce, college professor and husband of a devout Catholic. Many people have motives, and all, for a time, are suspects to Lanigan, Police Chief of sleepy little (but now wide awake) Barnard's Crossing. A convoluted, sometimes humorous mystery that makes for entertaining reading.
-Bunni Union, Geauga West Lib . ,
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Politics--religious and academic--inform this welcome encore from the always entertaining Kemelman ( Conversations with Rabbi Small ), whose previous Rabbi Small mysteries have won him a legion of fans. Twenty-five years after coming to the Boston suburb of Barnard's Crossing, Rabbi David Small is considering retirement. But before he can get so much as one foot out of the pulpit, a local college professor dies in a car accident and the weary clergyman finds himself once again drawn from his own everyday concerns into more serious matters. A known gigolo, the professor had recently wed the unattractive niece of a college benefactor in a bid to ensure his tenure. At first the authorities ascribe his death to drunk driving, but as the tawdry details of the man's life become known, police chief Hugh Lanigan suspects foul play and enlists the help of his old friend and partner in detection, Rabbi Small. Moving between scenes at the synagogue with its ever-squabbling board of directors and the fiercely competitive tenure-track tableaux at the college, the narrative never flags as clues and suspects accumulate. Lively dialogue, dry wit and wonderfully authentic detail make this a sure winner.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

After nine previous novels, it's no wonder Rabbi David Small has had it with the fractious congregation at Barnard's Crossing, Massachusetts, and is looking for another line of work. First, though, there's one minor distraction: the death of tenure-hungry Victor Joyce of Windermere Christian College, apparently killed in a drunk-driving accident, but actually murdered sometime after Dr. Abner Gorfinkle examined the wreck and pronounced him alive. Will the rabbi be able to talk Chief Hugh Lanigan out of fingering the police suspect-- upstanding Mordecai Jacobs, Joyce's competition for tenure at Windermere--and sort out the untidy subplots to finger the obvious killer in time to tender his resignation? Is the Pope Polish? Sketchy work from a pro who, like his hero, seems to have his mind on something else all through the book. The murder mystery is less interesting, presumably by design, than the question of what's next in store for the rabbi. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.