DEATH BY EDUCATION

Sub-par mystery debut, set in L.A., featuring McCormick High School English teacher/guidance-counselor Greta—who's intent on discovering who strangled two pretty teenagers (one of them pregnant—but not by the girl's boyfriend). Greta's first suspects lascivious janitor Rudy Smith, but then he's also killed, and so she focuses instead on new love Adam, the widowed school principal- -even though a necktie belonging to math teacher Stanley has been found in an incriminating place. While ignoring the advice of detectives and her own wisecracking teacher-chum Maxine (who's more interested anyhow in Greta's revitalized sex life than in the murders), Greta unwisely accepts a lift from the murderer.... Dull characters, a tediously transparent plot, and—despite Rosen's own schoolteacher background—a surprisingly superficial etching of her milieu.