Cold And Pure And Very Dead (2001) - Plot & Excerpts
The fourth Karen Pelletier mystery by Joanne Dobson, though the fifth one I have read, I liked this one a lot. In addition to having the author’s signature literary-associated murder(s), we have sidebars where she recreates a fictional work for our enjoyment. (I’m guessing it gives the author some enjoyment to dabble in an alternative style too). Aside from being a murder mystery, the book, right up front in its title, asks us the question “what is literary anyway?” The full quote from Sinclair Lewis reads “Our American Professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead”. One of the previous books in the series referred to English Professors preference for Dead White Males, and this is a subtler expansion of that topic. Specifically, can popular novels be literature? In a throwaway line to an annoying New York Times reporter, Karen Pelletier nominates a Peyton Place-style novel as her choice for best book of the 20th century, setting in motion a series of events that give us our story. The book, 1959’s Oblivion Falls, resurfaces as a bestseller and the reporter goes seeking its long-disappeared author, and finds more than he expected. Specifically, he is killed. And the now-exposed writer is now the prime suspect. More mayhem ensues when a second writer is killed.Karen and her usual cast of characters (Lieutenant Piotrowski etc) are now dragged into attempting to decipher the clues in real life and in the old novel, where all the characters were based on real people (though not the events!). The campus politics continue as before; this time we have an old fogey turning up as the Palaver Chair, a sinecure where conservative literary opinions can be espoused without fear of criticism from junior professors…. But wait, he was old enough to have been around when the book was published…..A good read…
*** "Cold and pure and very dead" by Joanne Dobson, is the 4th mystery by an E. NY lit prof about the same. The Agatha Christie tradition puts character and brain ahead of action and blood. University politics and middle-aged spinster indecisive romance are heavy, full of literary quotes, references and spoofed academic jargon. I can envision the author's real-life enemies skewered, much as young Mildred fictionalizes the tale of her best friend, seduced and murdered by a handsome visiting prof. The sudden fame leads Mildred to have an illegitimate babe adopted, and vanish from the public pressure for a sequel. Decades later, Prof Karen brings the racy title to the attention of an interviewing journalist. He re-ingnites the notoriety, traces Mildred to her goat farm lane, where he is murdered by her shotgun. Shy admiring NY cop Charlie warns Karen she will be visited by the law, and the sleuths are on the trail of past and present misdeeds.
What do You think about Cold And Pure And Very Dead (2001)?
This is probably my favorite of the series, or possibly the next one, I can't decide. Karen Pelletier, English professor at fictional Enfield College, is giving an interview to NYTimes reporter. He asks her the aggravating question of what's your pick for best book of the 20th century? She facetiously names a book that could be compared to the real book "Peyton Place," which she finished reading earlier that week. This sets off a search for the author of the book, who had disappeared many years previously, not having produced a second book. All of the odd things that are set off by this off-the-cuff comment are possibly a bit amazing, but make for an entertaining read.
—Vicki
