Reviewed By Liz

Today’s featured author is Carole Shmurak. Carole’s most recent book, DEATH BY COMMITTEE, features professor Susan Lombardi.

DEATH BY COMMITTEE takes place entirely at Metropolitan University. Faculty squabbling at the university turns deadly when Susan joins a committee to make a tenure decision about Abby Gillette, a controversial faculty member. After one colleague is hospitalized following a suspicious fire and another is found dead in Abby’s office, Susan must try to figure out who is doing what to whom without becoming the next victim. At the same time, she must deal with her husband’s highly dysfunctional family and help a friend handle a questionable romance.

DEADMISTRESS is the first book in a series featuring Dr. Susan Lombardi, a 40ish professor of education at Metropolitan State University, in Albion, Connecticut. DEADMISTRESS is a lighthearted, traditional mystery with a murder in a close-knit community in which almost everyone has a motive for wanting the demise of the victim. Its heroine is part of a long tradition of academic sleuths.

Carole Shmurak is also co-author of the Matty Trescott young adult mystery series with co-author Tom Ratliff. This series is written under the name Carroll Thomas. Book three in the series, RING OUT WILD BELLS, was nominated for the Agatha Award for Best Young Adult Mystery of 2001. As the Civil War comes to an end Matty and Neely are just finishing up their studies at the Hartford Female Seminary. Neely is inspired to pursue her studies at Mount Holyoke as a budding scientist, while Matty’s war experiences have led her to an interest in studying medicine. In college, the young women make new friends, encounter old ones, and learn something about women’s rights and the law.

Visit Carole Shmurak on the web at http://www.mattytrescott.com/carole.htm.

If you haven’t signed up for the Summer Mystery Reading Challenge yet, click here for directions. You are welcome to read along on your own, of course, but only registered participants are eligible for the prizes. No matter what your mystery preference - cozy, noir, hard-boiled, soft-boiled, thriller, suspense - we have it on revewiedbyliz this Summer.

If you would like to comment on a book by a featured author or ask them a question, please leave the comment on their daily page so they can find it easily. Comments about what you are reading, books you have finished, requests for readalikes or recommendations, or mystery related links can be made on the SMRC post for that day so we can all see them. Thanks!