Till the End of Tom (Amanda Pepper Mysteries (Hardcover))

Rating:
Summary: I love the Amanda Pepper series and was not disappointed
Review: by this latest in the series. I started the series in the middle and have been reading the books in no particular order, but it really doesn't matter.

All of the books in this series use the motif of commenting on a theme in a classic book (earlier books have used Romeo and Juliet and Jane Eyre, for example). This one uses East of Eden, Steinbeck's story of a parent's preference for one child. That theme is developed in this story line.

The book begins with a punch, as Philly Prep English teacher- and "detective" -- Amanda Pepper trips over a badly injured man lying at the foot of marble steps inside the school. Everyone else is at an assembly; she calls the police and sends the school secretary to tell the principal to keep the students in the assembly hall. The injured man quickly dies and the police are looking around for suspects. One of her favorite students seems to be a possibility, and if that weren't enough to get Amanda interested in the case, she and her former homicide detective and now part-time PI fiance CK are asked to see if another person might be the culprit. The dead man turns out to be a wealthy Philadelphian, and Amanda is drawn into the world of Philly high society. In the meantime, she's got this wedding in 3 months, and various relatives and friends are trying to get her to make decisions about the wedding -- like where to hold it.

What I didn't like about the book is the last two pages, which deals with Amanda's wedding plans. I hope Gillian Roberts changes her mind before the next book!

Rating:
Summary: Time Wounds All Heels and Heals All Wounds
Review: Till the End of Tom reminded me of Agatha Christie's classic story, Murder on the Orient Express, in its plot built around the ultimate-victim-you-love-to-hate. But the story offers much more. Ms. Roberts also comments in fundamental ways about what a family is (and should be), sexual stereotypes, and wedding traditions. That combination made this book a definite thinking person's mystery . . . with the mystery, though rewarding, being of secondary importance to the overall relationships of the characters.

Amanda Pepper is frazzled by her impending marriage, her family's insistence on her enthusiastic involvement in the plans, papers to grade, and her need to work part-time to make a little money as a clerk in the private detective agency where her fiancé is working.

It's not surprising then that she chose to duck out of another boring assembly led by the school's headmaster where she teaches. When she does, she steps into trouble!

Here's the book's great opening:

"My mind was on Steinbeck; my foot was on a hand.

"I screamed."

Amanda finds herself drawn into investigating a mysterious accident in her school after she steps on the injured man's hand. The clues are eclectic and puzzling. How did a well-to-do society fixture come to visit Amanda's classroom? Who spiked his tea? Who was making threatening calls to him? What is the danger presented by the victim's mother's young fiancé? Who did it?

With so much to praise, why didn't I think this was a five-star book? Well, you'll have to read the book to know . . . but Ms. Roberts makes all sorts of "out-in-left-field" connections and coincidences that undercut what is otherwise a most entertaining story. The story would have been more than enjoyable without those ridiculous stretches. I would have preferred they not been included. Perhaps you will decide to read the book and decide for yourself about whether the plot overreaches or not. In addition, the plot builds around ignoring the possible roles of several characters until near the end. I found this to be a most unrealistic and unfortunate way to develop the story.

Rating:
Summary: entertaining academic mystery
Review: When Philly Prep teacher Amanda Pepper ducks out of the headmaster's speech in the auditorium she finds a man lying comatose on the bottom of the marble stairs. He dies en route to the hospital; Amanda thinks he was murdered because he fell backwards and has an injury to his cheek. She learns that the victim, Tomas Severin, wanted to hire her services as a private detective to investigate threatening phone calls he was getting.

Later, Amanda finds a cup of tea in her office that she assumes was Tomas' drink. She gives it to the police to see if there was anything in it. It turns out that somebody put a date rape drug in the tea. Not too much later, Amanda and her fiancée are hired by the social secretary to Tomas's mother Ingrid to find out whether her employer's fiancée who is forty-six years younger than his future bride had something to do with the homicide. Amanda feels needs to solve the case fast because Tomas's son Zach, Amanda's favorite student, confesses to killing his father. Amanda wants to clear Zach by finding out how Tomas really died because she doesn't believe her pupil committed patricide.

TILL THE END OF TOM is a very entertaining academic mystery due in large part to the heroine's trying to work two jobs and plan her wedding. This leads to some very numerous scenes and will have any reader who planned their own wedding chuckling out loud. Gillian Roberts is a talented writer whose clever plotting and excellent characterizations make TILL THE END OF TOM a very erudite mystery.

Harriet Klausner