Rating: 
Summary: An entertaining weekend read!
Review: Though a bit simplistic, this one is worth it. As a black woman working in a traditionally white career path, I found Nikki's struggle to attain career success interesting. I must say however, that by the middle of the book, I had the "surprise" ending pegged. Still, I would recommend this for those interested in Harvard and an educated woman's view of it. Entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: This should be so much better...
Review: Well, why not exploit Harvard (or any other IVY League institution) if you went there? The problem with this book is it sounds like the energy must have gone into the pitch (obviously, the author made a few connections as a consultant to entertainment companies) rather than the content. Hopefully, sales will sustain Ms. Thomas' series long enough for her to grow into the craft. But this book is a clunker--the dialogue, structure, stereotyped characters, and narrative cliches all detract so much from the predictable plot, it was impossible to enjoy the book or ever forget you were reading an author who reminds you twice--on the back of the paperback and inside the cover--that she graduated Phi Beta Kappa etc, etc from Harvard.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing.
Review: When I first heard about this book, I was really excited because of its African-American author and characters, but it soon became obvious that the reader has to have been at an ivy-league college to get into this book. Not being an ivy-grad, I found it very hard to relate to much of anything in it. The writing style seems like the front page of the Wall Street Journal. The characters seem either flat or cliche (and by cliche I mean REALLY cliche). Books about successful African-American characters should inspire to be like them, but this one sure doesn't. Don't waste your time with this one.
Rating:
Summary: Economist? What Economist?
Review: While other reviewers seem to have read the book because it was about a black, or a woman, or Harvard, or because it was written by a black woman from Harvard, I read it because the main character was an economist. And in that respect, I was sorely disappointed.Nikki Chase has a job in the Economics Department at Harvard, but she uses no economic insights, economic logic, or economic laws to help her figure out the crime. By comparison the "Henry Spearman" series by Marshall Jevons, or the various books by Russell Roberts, all feature protagonists who make use of the laws of economics. In the Henry Spearman books, such issues as changes in relative prices, opportunity cost, and economic constraints factor in to the solution. Russell Roberts even uses the ghost of David Ricardo, a famous British Classical economist, to tell one of his stories. But author Pamela Thomas-Graham, despite having been an undergraduate economics major, shows no evidence of understanding anything about economics. It is important that Nikki Chase is a professor, but she could as easily have been in sociology, physics, or basket weaving for the importance that the academic field itself played in the plot. That is, she uses the flexibility allowed in academia to take time off during the day to wander around and check stuff out; in a non-academic position, it would be much harder to do this. However, this ability to wander around campus during the day time is hardly unique to economists. Likewise, Thomas-Graham's undergraduate experiences have shown through this work. Her heroine carries around a backpack like an undergraduate; I don't know of any professors who do so. A brief case, a stachel, or even a tote bag are more likely devices.
In addition, the lead character is apparently required to write papers for her department head. This is extremely odd. While collaborations certainly exist in academia, I am completely unfamiliar with (indeed shocked at) the idea that a department head can order a junior faculty member to write his articles for him. I doubt that a Harvard department chairman needs a junior faculty member to do so; after all, the Harvard charman got where he is by doing outstanding work in the first place. Given all that, I found that the book flowed reasonably well. I had no problem sitting down and reading for an hour or two. I was not particularly annoyed by the fairly mild exploration of racial issues (as were some of the other reviewers), and I was only mildly annoyed at the frequent name-dropping. (I confess to not understanding all of the dropped references to locations, brand names, and other things that the author thought important enough to push at me.) However, by the end, I had no particular interest in whodunit. I didn't care whether the killer was the janitor, the president, the cop, the pizza delivery kid, or even Nikki Chase herself. When the author finally revealed the killer, I was not surprised, shocked, or self-congratulatory. I was merely through with the book. That said, I did go ahead and read the next book in the series, in the hopes that the author had worked out a few kinks in the first book and the second would be better. And my thoughts on that work are pretty much the same. I doubt I will read anything else by this author.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad for a first start, but strays from academia
Review: While the text has the typical first-novel flaws, it's not a bad first-try. However, for all the author's accomplishments, it's clear that she isn't from academia. An assistant professor does not write papers *for* the chair; at best she'd be a co-author. Nor does an assistant professor write editorials for the chair, nor does the chair threaten to take away a class in the middle of the term (unless the professor is grossly negligent, not showing up for class for example). Any Ivy League professor would be happy to have a class taken away so they could concentrate on research, which is what gets them tenure. Nor does success come from performing on committees, nor does the president control tenure decisions. For those of us in the academy, more fact-checking would make the book more enjoyable and believable.
Rating:
Summary: What a load of self-indulgent pooh
Review: Whodunnit it maybe, but the new Agatha Christie P Thomas Graham definitely is not. Perhaps Mrs Graham should read more books before she attempts to write them. And perhaps she should also leave her ivory tower and stop rubbing the rest of our noses in it. I did not go to Harvard, nor any other Ivy League school, but my college is not my reason for being - Why is it that one's Alma Mater defines one? Big deal you got a degree. Do you have a personality? Harvard grad she may be, but her writing is definitely senior high . . . Purple prose, meandering sentences, bad sex parts. The blacks versus whites thing is valid, but she treats the blacks as caricatures (black panthers or Uncle Toms - both groups are treated disparagingly). Whites don't escape either - the ditzy secretary is a millionaire WASP daughter - whose butler Gaston trips at the end. That is like, so believable. Wealthy girls do not 'do' for college professors. And who has a butler named Gaston? Is this a Noel Coward play gone horribly wrong? The best denouement is when we find that the president of Harvard is really black. And even his WASP princess wife who was racist all along knew all the time, and is able and willing to hang in da hood - why she even calls Nikki Chase "girlfriend" at the end. Masterful. Not. There is a lot of page filling (as opposed to page turning) stuff - like "My Prada backpack" The whole thing read like a senior year 'My trip to Harvard this summer" essay. And does anyone know what a magisterial staircase is? I have seen majestic staircases in my time, but never a magisterial one.
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