A day later Ben receives a telegram notifying him that Richard has died of a heart attack. As the executor of Richard's will, Ben flies back to Ohio. Even though the death seems entirely due to natural causes, Ben still embarks on a private investigation.

When another faculty member dies also of "natural causes," Ben knows the two deaths are related. His determination to discover the identity of the murderer will lead to an arranged accident that endangers his own life.

This mystery, set in 1960 academia, is the first in a series of Ben Reese mysteries by this debut author. Its strongest element is the character of Ben Reese. Ben is a World War II veteran. Grievously wounded, he accomplished heroic deeds. After the war, he pursued his academic degrees on the G.I. Bill. He married, but his wife died of complications of childbirth. Now he lives a rather solitary existence, but the scholarly life hasn't eradicated the classic man-of-action hero. In life-and-death situations, he can still come through.

The plot, however, is fairly mundane. Even though this is a multiple murder mystery, it had all the heart-pounding suspense of a who-stole-the-vicar's-sermon mystery. Although I didn't have any difficulty staying with it till the end, I never got caught up in it and would likely have put it aside if I hadn't been reading it in order to review it. If we rated books by color instead of stars, this one would be beige. There's simply not much in it to get excited about.

Nevertheless, there's nothing really to dislike about the book. There are enough red herrings tossed in to keep the villain from being too obvious, but there are also enough clues woven through the story that most armchair detectives will figure out the whodunit before the big final climactic scene.

More Ben Reese mysteries are planned. There's enough depth to his character to support further adventures. With luck, the next one will grab me more than this one did.

--Lesley Dunlap