STRANGLED BY SIMILE

In this mystery, the murder of a high school football coach spurs two amateur detectives back into action.

This third installment of former teacher Kaye’s Chalkboard Outlines series stars beloved veteran English instructor and “rabid pacifist” Emma Lovett and her fashion-conscious best friend, Leslie Parker. They are entering their third year at Western Colorado’s Thomas Jefferson High School. After enjoying a respite from investigating two murders that rocked Jefferson High, it’s not long before another body shows up just a month after the start of the new school year. This time, it’s one of Emma’s colleagues. Football coach and staunch sports fanatic Charlie Foreman (“Sports were—almost—his only reason for being”) is found strangled in a gymnasium office. Though Charlie happened to be the school superintendent’s son, he also was someone with an abrasive personality who frequently locked horns with the staff. But who would go to the extreme of murdering him? Leslie’s dating exploits with her boyfriend, Shawn, and her penchant for quoting Shakespeare throughout the book add touches of humor and whimsy to the weightier amateur investigation, which draws in suspects galore from across the school. They include students, promising athletes, twin brothers, and a Speedo-wearing trailer dweller as well as Leslie herself. As the mystery unfolds and Emma is threatened and then attacked at a party, it becomes clear that both Charlie’s private and professional lives had been vastly underestimated. The rather rushed reveal comes as a surprise after a Hamlet-style trap is set. Adding heft to the storyline are intriguing specifics surrounding Emma’s recent complaints of dizziness and foggy vision. When the cause is revealed after a meticulously detailed MRI, it’s a serious diagnosis. Emma’s trials with the same ailment that the author has grappled with afford readers a more intimate glimpse into the protagonist’s life and immensely humanize her beyond the quirky high school teacher–cum–amateur sleuth persona. With the tale’s swift plotting, hint of danger, and effortlessly clever, hip prose, Kaye again demonstrates how simple storytelling can translate into indulgently devilish fun even in the violence-prone murder mystery genre.

A buoyant, frolicsome whodunit anchored by an unassuming, supersleuthing duo.