Schooled in Murder: 01/30/25

Schooled in Murder by Victoria Gilbert (2025) is the start of the Campus Sleuth mystery series. Jenn Dalton is an author and lecturer at Clarion University. An anti-genre fiction professor is murdered and evidence points to Mia, one of Jenn's promising students. She decides to solve the murder to exonerate for student.

A new book series is always a litmus test. How is the main character? How are the supporting ones? How does the main character's job apply to the mystery at hand? How do the characters fit into the setting?

Here, though, I recognize the location. It's the same university that Richard Muir teaches dance at. Of course he has to make an appearance. I honestly feel like having him be in the book and to have his library director wife, Amy Webber-Muir, the protagonist of The Blue Ridge mystery series, be mentioned lessons this first book.

The mystery by itself was enjoyable. The mystery wasn't too hard to solve, nor was it too easy. Jenn is an interesting character and her cohorts are fun too. Were they left alone without the spin-off shenanigans I would have rated this five stars.

Four stars

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