Rating: 
Summary: Refreshing!
Review: Anyone expecting standard, run-of-the-mill mystery will be disappointed in Lev Raphael's witty academic satires that go beyond the genre's tired conventions. Like Robert Barnard and other masters, his new book experiments with a late murder--though there's a parallel mystery from early on involving stalking. What a joy to see an author do something different than he did in his last book, where the murder took place in the opening chapter.The writing is eloquent and funny, the characters unforgettable, and best of all, in this fourth Nick Hoffman mystery we see an unexpected mid-life crisis for Nick that will doubtless raise the ire of the Political Correctness Police who don't know how to read fiction. This is a novel, not an inspirational pamphlet. In its own way, LITTLE MISS EVIL is as daring as Binnie Kaufman's magnificent PURE POETRY. Over four books of the series, we've seen the stresses and strains of a couple living together for 15 years: jealousy, career anxieties, a medical emergency and now something completely different. Bravo to Lev Raphael, whose collection DANCING ON TISHA B'AV broke new ground in 1990, for this finely inventive novel.
Rating:
Summary: Accuracy in Academia
Review: As academic life and the academics who live it become more bizarre with each passing craze-to wit postmodern rejections of science, administrative romances with accountability indexes, the promulgation of vision statements and mission statements ad infinitum, the seductiveness of distance learning-Lev Raphael's Nick Hoffman mysteries morph from satire to prophecy without losing a trace of their ability to make you laugh out loud. Case in point: Little Miss Evil, whose outlandish accuracy when it comes to such matters as mercenary departmental appointments, administrative fixations on fads like White Studies, and the general debasement at state universities of the liberal arts I can sadly vouch for. Since the tides of corporatism in the academy may well be irreversible, laughing along with Lev should help keep you sane. George Wolf Lincoln, NE
Rating:
Summary: Another Masterpiece
Review: I bought the book months ago but recently got around to reading it. What a chore it was even though the book was short. I was annoyed at the structure (where was the mystery?). This was my first Nick Hoffman mystery but I was familiar with Lev Raphael through his essays about gay and Jewish pride. But in Little Miss Evil, Lev seemed more intent on trying to establish that gays lead "normal" lives than with presenting a real mystery. There are a number of writers who do a much better job with a gay sleuth, for example Fred Hunter.
Rating: 
Summary: Bad form, and Nick always had good!
Review: I didn't even make it past the first three chapters. The author's constant remarks about how over-weight this character was or how ugly this other one is made it a real drag. Why bring a mystery down to the level of insulting it reader's intelligence with diatribes about your stand point on what is "beauty." It's a mystery novel.
Of course from what I've read in the other reviews no real mystery happens. I know I wont purchase any further Nick novels... try Grant Michaels series about Stan Kraychik. So much better than Mr. Raphael's latest offerings.
Rating: 
Summary: Dessert: A dash of Midwest, academia, Jewish, gay & mystery
Review: Lev Raphael's stories I find delightfully entertaining. I read "Little Miss Evil" back to back with "Death of a Constant Lover" which is probably the recommended course of reading. Alas, I've missed Lev's publications since "Let's Get Criminal," but I have added those overlooked to my wish list. There are enough reviews giving away the plot or criticizing a variation from correct mystery/crime line. Raphael is unconventional, an academic who is suppose to broaden us, so I enjoyed the reading-ride. I openly chuckled on the bus and in a restaurant, and wiped my eyes too with other emotions stirred. The Nick Hoffman series should have a wide appeal and including anyone connected with academia or those educated higher ups that can enjoy laughing at themselves. I've been recommending Raphael to client's and friends connected with the University of Chicago, as I'm sure not everything is just Ravelstein in Hyde Park. I like the character's Nick and Stefan, they remind me of people I know; my medical doctor and his boyfriend who recently found out about his own Madeline Albright-esque Jewish roots. These characters set standards for a burgeoning gay community, one that is looking for icons. A community so youth-oriented in an age of steroids and viagra, and that hereto sadly seems to be mostly fodder to hypnotizing Leni Riefenstahl-like advertisements. I prefer broader American Dream icons, even if they are characters in a novel like Stefan and Nick, who aspire for higher plateaus, teaching our young, making a home, and a creating lasting relationships. These two just happen to be even more enlightening for readers as they are also a Jewish couple living in the American Midwest.
Hence, The Nick Hoffman series belongs in every Temple library too.
Rating:
Summary: Dessert: A dash of Midwest, academia, Jewish, gay & mystery
Review: Lev Raphael's stories I find delightfully entertaining. I read "Little Miss Evil" back to back with "Death of a Constant Lover" which is probably the recommended course of reading. Alas, I've missed Lev's publications since "Let's Get Criminal," but I have added those overlooked to my wish list. There are enough reviews giving away the plot or criticizing a variation from correct mystery/crime line. Raphael is unconventional, an academic who is suppose to broaden us, so I enjoyed the reading-ride. I openly chuckled on the bus and in a restaurant, and wiped my eyes too with other emotions stirred. The Nick Hoffman series should have a wide appeal and including anyone connected with academia or those educated higher ups that can enjoy laughing at themselves. I've been recommending Raphael to client's and friends connected with the University of Chicago, as I'm sure not everything is just Ravelstein in Hyde Park. I like the character's Nick and Stefan, they remind me of people I know; my medical doctor and his boyfriend who recently found out about his own Madeline Albright-esque Jewish roots. These characters set standards for a burgeoning gay community, one that is looking for icons. A community so youth-oriented in an age of steroids and viagra, and that hereto sadly seems to be mostly fodder to hypnotizing Leni Riefenstahl-like advertisements. I prefer broader American Dream icons, even if they are characters in a novel like Stefan and Nick, who aspire for higher plateaus, teaching our young, making a home, and a creating lasting relationships. These two just happen to be even more enlightening for readers as they are also a Jewish couple living in the American Midwest.
Hence, The Nick Hoffman series belongs in every Temple library too.
Rating:
Summary: Sharpening the Skewers For Academe
Review: Some of my favorite things to find in mystery fiction are wit and heart, and LITTLE MISS EVIL has both. When the State University of Michigan brings on board Camille Cypriani, a vituperative best-selling author, offering her an exorbitant salary for virtually no work, there isn't an unruffled feather left in the department. Nick Hoffman, the series sleuth who slogs away teaching composition at SUM, has to sort through university politics, department egos, a creepy campaign of intimidation against himself -- and murder. Lev Raphael has an exceptionally fine, droll style he applies with real insight into life both on and off the college campus.
Rating:
Summary: Back to the drawing board
Review: The author obviously conducted an experiment when he tried to concoct a mystery without there being a murder until the end. The experiment failed miserably. I hope that the author now realizes that there are certain rules that qualify a story as a mystery and those rules are not to be breached. But as proven by able authors for generations, there is amble wiggle room within those rules to be creative, crafty, and devious, all to the delight of the reader.
Rating:
Summary: it's murder in academia
Review: There are no dead bodies until well into Lev Raphael's latest academia mystery, but you won't miss them at all as you are taken along for a ride through backstabbing murderous university scenery. This is Raphael's best yet, in his Nick Hoffman series. Nick's partner is suffering from midlist writer's angst; the English Department at the university has been invaded by a best-selling harridan; and Nick is (horrors) finding that he's attracted to, of all things, a woman. Spicing it up is the usual cast of outrageous professorial and administrative characters that Raphael does so well. Hang on to your funnybone and enjoy LITTLE MISS EVIL.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful realistic view of academics
Review: There is trouble in the State University of Michigan EAR (English, American Studies, and Rhetoric) department and Nick Hoffman, a non-tenured professor who always seems to find himself surrounded by murder, is in the middle of it. Someone is stalking him, everyone is upset about a new endowed chair, and murder is once again in the air. Using a professor who teaches a class in mystery allows Lev Raphael (the author) to have Nick name-drop all of the latest mystery authors, along with Virginia Wolfe, Edith Warton, Dark Passages, and Titanic with equal humor. I found myself laughing out loud when Nick (after spending too long on Janet Evanovich) wondered if he should simplify his diet (his partner, Stephan set him straight--Stephanie Plum is no role model). The academic setting is brutally realistic. Unlike business, the University really is a zero sum game and professors play to win--not that there is much joy even in the winning. Still, Nick keeps his sense of humor and deepens his relationships with Stephan, his cousin Sharon, and the strangely attractive Professor Juno Dromgoole (is there a certain Dickensian quality to Raphael's naming?).
| 
