Rosemary falls in love with Sanderson’s Vermont location, and after some reflection on the direction of her career, she accepts the position.

She hasn’t even had time to unpack her books when on an early morning jog with her poodle, she discovers Blanche’s dead body in the college swimming pool. She hears a number of people, both faculty and student, complain about the severe budget cutbacks that Blanche was instituting. The Olympic-quality sports programs were to be especially hard hit. An autopsy points to foul play as the cause of death.

Rosemary meets several other faculty members including Sanderson College President Eames, Kevin Oxley, a Classics professor, and Claus Henderson, the biology professor who had had a long-standing love affair with Blanche. She also becomes acquainted with the Hispanic police detective Rafael Ramirez, who is in charge of the police investigation.

When the body of an outspoken faculty activist is discovered, the mystery deepens. The college’s financial difficulties seem central in the motivation behind the murders. A trustee will enlist Rosemary’s assistance in deciphering the college financial records - a move that will lead to new questions and endanger Rosemary’s life.

Clare Munnings is a pseudonym for the writing team of Jill Ker Conway, former president of Smith College, and Elizabeth Kennan, former president of Mount Holyoke College. The authors’ New England, women’s college academic backgrounds are evident in the book - the faculty squabbling and financial manipulation episodes seem more vivid than other scenes (such as finding the corpus delicti) and often overwhelm the mystery plot.

That these digressions are sometimes the most interesting aspect of the book is an indication of just how underwhelming the mystery is. The narrative lacks a sense of immediacy which is essential for an engrossing mystery story. Rosemary is an admirable enough character, but it’s a bit of a misnomer to term her a ‘sleuth’ as the book cover does. She spends the greater part of her time in non-sleuth activities, and her solving the mystery owes more to propinquity than to any detective skills she possesses.

Overnight Float has all the hallmarks of a first novel in an intended series. The college setting is firmly established, various characters are introduced, and Rosemary is now set in her chaplaincy career so that successive books can present the mystery without delay. Furthermore, the book ends on something of an ambiguous note: is Rosemary going to become involved with Kevin or Ramirez? Perhaps future installments will offer readers a stronger mystery story line and less of an academic exposé. This first novel, however, does not rise above the level of acceptable.

--Lesley Dunlap