ALL MORTAL GREATNESS (THE SESSIONS UNIVERSITY)

A mysterious murder serves as the backdrop for Cover’s third installment in The Sessions University thriller series.

Following the events of the previous series installments, Thomas Simpson, who two years ago was “a nobody associate professor of communications at Sessions, dealing only with [his] courses to ever more ill-prepared and clueless undergraduates” is now the executive director of the philanthropic Mark Berger Foundation. With him is his best friend Zoltan Vastag, a Hungarian who is also a leading cancer researcher at the medical center, and Mark Berger, an alumnus billionaire with an amusing Boston accent (“I like that idea. Might even be a nice naming opportunity in honah of my parents”) who is now chair of the board of trustees at Sessions. After a dangerous few years involving covered-up murders, international espionage, and being under the terrifying watch of U.S. Special Operations, the three men are ready for their lives to return to normal. But just as things seem to be settling down, the acting president of the university is murdered while making his way home on campus. The mysterious killer? An untraceable drone with an equally untraceable 3D-printed gun. Now it’s up to Thomas, Zoltan, and Mark to figure out who’s behind the murder, all while trying to keep themselves safe in the process. Though marketed as a standalone novel, new readers might be confused by the expansive backstory needed to clarify the plot. In the same vein, a big cast of side characters can be hard to keep track of for those unfamiliar with the series. While Cover’s use of a killer drone as a looming terror over the campus is fun and unique, the more thrilling aspects of the novel are overshadowed by an excess of dialogue-heavy scenes that occasionally make the pacing feel sluggish.

A sometimes-slow thriller best suited for fans already familiar with the series.