Just before the program is about to begin, Alice runs screaming from the administration building covered in graduate student Bryan’s blood.  Bryan was a doctorial candidate and had recently filed sexual harassment charges against a professor in the English Department, Dr. Emily Clowper.  Bryan was also the nephew of Detective Cal McCormick, a rough and tough cowboy from Tally’s past and Dr. Clowper has recently been involved with Tally’s high school beau, Finn Harper, who has also returned to Dalliance. This all makes Bryan’s murder feel closer to Tally than she’d like.  

Alice, having taken a page from Tally’s recent murder investigation, first offers to help her academic mentor (who has been banished from the campus) keep up with her work. But she quickly becomes involved in trying to ferret out the truth about Bryan’s murder, especially after something about Emily comes out that tarnishes her image in the eyes of her young protégé. 

Tally tries hard to keep her niece out of trouble, at the same time offering comfort to Cal and suppressing the green-eyed monster where Finn is concerned, all the while trying to figure out her own heart.  

Not quite as satisfying as the first entry to the series, Scoop to Kill starts out a little slowly, though the pace quickly increases. The telling clue is presented early and is easy to recognize, though it takes a while to put it in context. At seventeen, Alice is academically head and shoulders about her peers, but is not quite as socially advanced as the young men and women on campus. While her mother, Brie ,has a bit of a wild streak, she is fiercely protective of Alice and determined Alice won’t make the same mistakes she has.  The cut throat world of academia, publish or perish, makes a good setting for a murder as suspects abound.  The Tally-Cal-Finn triangle is not quite defined and while it is not entirely clear who feels what for whom and who just has fond memories.                                                                                    

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry