GREY EXPECTATIONS

A Boston-based grad student searching for supporting documentation for her thesis finds herself involved in yet another murder.

Dulcie Schwartz has chosen The Ravages, a little-known Gothic novel whose anonymous author created an early feminist heroine, as the subject of her dissertation. Her investigation into the author’s identity is disturbed when the valuable Dunster Codex goes missing from a secured area of the library, and all the doctoral students who have access are suspect. Dulcie’s friend Trista claims that two police officers have accused her of murdering Roland Galveston, a graduate student with dubious credentials who vanished along with the Codex. Trista's boyfriend is frantic, but the police refuse to do anything until Trista’s been missing for a longer period. Meanwhile, Dulcie wonders if she’s being set up herself for the theft. Her psychic mother is calling her with dire warnings, and Dulcie’s having strange dreams about the unknown author of The Ravages. She can’t help be a bit jealous of the fact that her deceased cat Mr. Grey, who’s always looked after her, has been talking more lately to her boyfriend Chris, and her new cat Esmé isn’t talking at all. Despite warnings from the campus police to stay out of what is now the murder of the professor who brought the Codex to the university, Dulcie continues to use her research skills to get herself out of trouble. Dulcie’s fourth (Shades of Grey, 2011, etc.) is slow going. The identity of The Ravages’ unknown author is a lot more interesting than the present-day shenanigans on the college campus.