English professor Alison Bergeron (Quick Study, 2008, etc.) gets stuck with dorm duty when a residence director goes AWOL.
Having best friend Max Rayfield moping around her house while recovering from a busted-up marriage has Alison on the verge of looking for new digs. But the residence director’s “suite” (one bedroom, plus a bump-out “living area,” plus a bathroom with nonworking toilet) is not her idea of grown-up quarters, especially not with a curfew that prohibits overnight visits from her sexy guy, Detective Bobby Crawford. So Alison, assigned by smarmy Dean Merrimack to take over Wayne Brookwell’s stint at Siena Hall, is frantic to find the missing RD so that she can go back to the ’burbs. What she finds instead is a huge stash of drugs, enough to pique Alison’s curiosity about why all Wayne’s resident assistants think he’s the coolest thing since rap. Is it his small-business sideline? The fact that he let Bart Johannsen snooze through desk duty? Or his winking at Michael Columbo’s after-hours visits from scantily clad Mary Catherine Donnery? Whatever his appeal, he’s got Amanda Reese questioning her commitment to her Princeton fiancé Brandon Tsagaris, and Amanda’s stepdad Costas Grigoriadis foaming at the mouth. Will Alison find the missing Wayne before the police—and before Crawford arrests her for frustrating an officer?
Though the puzzle her author sets has all the suspense of a Shakespeare sonnet, Alison has enough charm to earn Final Exam a passing grade.
