Murdering Americans

Inspired by the film fantasies of 1950s Hollywood, Baroness Troutbeck, an ardent conservative, heads for America to become a visiting professor at an American campus, unaware that U.S. academia is dominated by liberalism and political correctness, and finds herself investigating the possible murder of the late Provost of Freeman State University.

In Dudley Edwards's provocative, humorous 11th Robert Amiss mystery (after 2004's Carnage on the Committee), the outrageous Baroness "Jack" Troutbeck—Mistress of St. Martha's College, Cambridge, and member of the House of Lords—experiences culture shock as a distinguished visiting professor at Freeman State University in New Paddington, Ind. With Horace, her loquacious parrot, perched on her shoulder, the conservative academic arrives in the Midwest to find a campus where political correctness has taken over, threatening to destroy Western Civilization as she knows it. Jack has her suspicions about the previous provost's death, and no trust in the left-wing current provost and the university president. She launches an investigation and convinces her partner-in-sleuthing, Robert Amiss, to cut his honeymoon short and help expose Freeman State's corruption, crime—and shoddy knee-jerk liberalism. Dudley Edwards wittily satirizes political correctness in this fast-paced academic romp. (Apr.)
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The fun in the eleventh Robert Amiss and Baroness "Jack" Troutbeck novel starts on the very first page and doesn't stop until the very last. When Baroness Troutbeck decides to pay a visit to an Indiana university, little does she anticipate the American obsession with political correctness. Luckily, she is distracted by a murder, and soon she and Amiss (Watson to her Holmes) are doggedly pursuing the killer. But the brutally blunt, brook-no-nonsense Lady Troutbeck can't quite escape the surreal clutches of political correctness. The Amiss/Troutbeck novels are comic mysteries in the cozy style: small casts, small settings, big laughs. Edwards doesn't let a single opportunity to poke fun pass her by, and it's the small moments, such as the baroness' futile attempts to enjoy a drink after a long flight, or her acid-tongued critique of a hotel breakfast (and let's not forget her interrogation by Homeland Security because of something her parrot said at the airport) that put a broad smile on our face. The story is enjoyable, but it's the way Edwards tells it that makes the tale--and the series--such a resounding success. David Pitt
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