[review] Death with Dostoevsky by Katherine Bolger Hyde

Death with Dostoevsky is the fourth book in Bolger Hyde’s Crime with Classics series. I almost never ever pick up a book in the middle of a series so this was a rare book for me. But I was so interested in the book blurb that I had to give it a chance.

Title: Death with Dostoevsky
Author: Katherine Bolger Hyde
Series: Crime with the Classics #4
First Published: December 3, 2019
Publisher: Severn House
Categories: Mystery
Acquired: from the publisher via NetGalley

*** Thank you to the publisher, Severn House, for providing me with an e-copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. ***

Professor Emily Cavanaugh has left Windy Corner behind and is back at Reed College on her sabbatical, determined to finish writing her book on Dostoevsky. She is soon reunited with one of her promising students, Daniel Razumov, as well as familiar faces on the teaching staff – her friend, Marguerite Grenier, her half-brother, Oscar Lansing, the abrasive division chair, Richard McClintock, and the predatory Taylor Curzon.

Known for her relentless pursuit of young male students, Taylor now has Daniel firmly in her sights. Emily knows Taylor must be stopped, but as she starts gathering evidence of Daniel’s harassment, she has a disturbing flashback, and then makes a gruesome discovery … Can Emily catch a dangerous campus killer while also confronting events from her own past?

Since this is book four in the series, there is a lot of background that I have obviously missed although this book hints at a lot of what has already happened in previous books.

In any case, Emily Cavanaugh is spending part of her sabbatical researching information for her passion project – a definitive English-language work on Dostoevsky’s tormented relationship with his Orthodox faith as it played out in his fiction. But her work is side-tracked when she has to deal with an annoying co-worker (Taylor Curzon) who Emily suspects is sexually harassing/assaulting male students.

I was mildly surprised as I reading this story because the requisite murder didn’t happen for quite a while. The first half of the story did a great job in setting up the scene (without ever losing my interest) and once the murder happened, the action continued at a good pace. Because there were several candidates for “who is going to die”, I stayed up reading way past my bedtime to find out who the victim was. And then of course, I had to keep reading to find out who the killer was! I rarely read books in one sitting anymore, so to say that this one had me hooked is an understatement.

There’s also a great cast of supporting characters, including Margot Grenier, Emily’s long-time friend and a member of the French department; Oscar Lansing, Emily’s long-lost brother and a adjunct professor; and Lt. Sheriff Luke Richards, Emily’s fiance, an old flame who is now back in her life. The personalities are as varied as you would expected for a mystery series set on a college campus.

Literature and coziness abound

When I was in university, one of the courses I took was Western Literature & Civilization. The class had over 300 students so we were split into study groups of about 25 to make things more manageable. The Teaching Assistant who headed up my group was doing his graduate work on Dostoevsky. So, much to the detriment of the other wonderful authors we were supposed to be studying, I learned A LOT about Dostoevsky that term. Maybe that’s why I was interested as soon as I saw this title.

This book reads fine as a standalone. While I had no problem settling into the story there were a lot of hints about Emily’s background that I’m curious about. Things like her new-found wealth, her dead husband, her long-lost brother – I hope they’re explained in a previous story. Emily is a great main character – she’s interesting, smart and capable, but doesn’t over-estimate her sleuthing skills or take crazy risks. She’s also had some trauma in her background, which comes into play during this story. I’m not sure if it has been resolved fully so it will be interesting it if comes up again in a future book.

I’m so glad I took the chance on this Death with Dostoevsky because I LOVE that this is a cozy mystery series based on classic literature. I can’t wait to go back and start this series from the beginning! The first book is called Arsenic with Austen – I can’t wait!

Read Death with Dostoevsky for yourself

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