The basic premise of Phi Beta Murder could have resulted in an interesting tale.  Sadly, the story is fatally flawed by apparently idiotic characters, and riddled with procedural inaccuracies.  Campus authorities have been repeatedly asked to investigate ongoing, escalating, serious problems involving drugs and a student website, but have failed to do so, for no good reason. The Jacksonville police would never declare the boy’s death a suicide, based on the evidence given. No campus medical authorities would be so irresponsible as to disclose detailed personal information to a stranger with no legal authority, based on a not-yet-received HIPAA waiver from the boy’s parents.

Rex investigates by conducting improbable interviews with people who seem all too ready to tell him everything they know.  He seems to feel fine about committing the odd felony in the name of investigation. Threaded throughout the story is Rex’s awkward personal life. He is a widower caught between an old girlfriend and a new one. The reader will pity both girlfriends; gracious, the man is inept at relationships!  The only sympathetic character in the book is Rex’s son Campbell; Rex himself is insufferable.

The end of Phi Beta Murder is especially annoying.  No police officer, no matter how inexperienced, could possibly have missed the evidence that leads to the solution; even a corrupt officer would never expect to get away with deliberately missing it.  In a story that is clearly intended to seem realistic, this can only mean that little research - or indeed, thought - went into the writing.  Don’t waste your time reading this one.

--Nancy McIntyre