In classic noir tradition, English Professor Karen Pelletier gains a client when her office door opens and a famous Private Eye novelist enters. The author is dogged by Trouble (a Rottweiler) and by a problem. And since Sunnye Hardcastle (a Patricia Cornwell lookalike) will be a featured speaker in the English Department's upcoming conference on the murder mystery (from a Feminist Perspective), Karen is intrigued.

The next thing you know, one midnight someone rushes out of the Enfield library with an armload of rare books. In fact, the library is missing a truckload of its treasures. Then a suspect is found dead in the stacks, his neck broken. With a real private eye on the case, the hunt is on—for the manuscript of Hammett's famous novel, The Maltese Falcon, for the missing books, and for potential murder suspects.

A sparkling fifth entry in an award-nominated series by Fordham University professor Joanne Dobson riffs the hardboiled genre and several sacred icons. What is truth? What is fiction? No one seems certain. Perhaps most frustrated is Karen's boyfriend, Massachusetts police lieutenant Charlie Piotrowski, a man having trouble dividing his personal and professional life, let alone translating modern academic-speak. But then, don't we all?

Joanne Dobson is the author of Quieter Than Sleep, The Northbury Papers, The Raven and the Nightingale, and Cold and Pure and Very Dead.

Reviews

“The Maltese Manuscript by Joanne Dobson is more fun than a barrel of battling academics and has sent me off on a quest for her previous titles. Think Kate Fansler meets Annie Darling with all the best qualities of each and you won’t be far off.” –The Courier-Gazette, Rockland, ME

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"Has anybody kept actuarial statistics on those faculty parties? They must be more dangerous than skydiving." —Kirkus Reviews on Quieter Than Sleep, nominated for an Agatha Award

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“In her fifth Prof. Karen Pelletier mystery, Dobson (Quieter Than Sleep) offers an academic novel both gutsy and romantic. Sound contradictory? It is, thanks to bestselling feminist author Sunnye Hardcastle, herself a dozen or so contradictions, who comes to Enfield College in Massachusetts with her rottweiler, Trouble, to speak on the hard-boiled women's detective novel at an English department conference. But trouble dogs Sunnye. Lavishly expensive texts and even a manuscript of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon disappear, despite a tight alarm system at the college library. Karen ends up hiding Sunnye from the local police, even though this brings down the wrath of Lt. Charlie Piotrowski, Karen's he-man lover, who's looking into the thefts. Murder muddles their affair, as well as the criminal investigation, which leads to two houses holding fabulous libraries, including many first editions, signed copies and manuscripts with marginal notes. Dobson's obvious knowledge of, and respect for, mystery and detective fiction is immense. She takes the reader on a glorious tour, describing everything from comic books to anthologies. Even the most moral mystery fans will understand why a person would want to purloin even one or two of these treasures. (Feb. 21) Forecast: Mystery scholars and collectors will eat this one up, while the arresting jacket art-which uses the original cover of Hammett's The Maltese Falcon-will draw casual browsers.”-Publishers Weekly

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"As usual, Dobson delightfully skewers the pretensions and politics of academic life while respecting the importance of education and a life of the mind." —Booklist

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“In The Maltese Manuscript, Joanne Dobson succeeds where others have failed. Dobson takes us within the hallowed walls of an academic setting and manages to keep the story fresh, the plot lively, the characters real, and most importantly of all, the mystery satisfying to the end.

Karen Pelletier is a professor (untenured as of yet) in the English Department at Enfield College, a prestigious institution in suburban Massachusetts. Karen is a single mother of Amanda, a student away at college, and she is romatically attached to Lieutenant Charlie Piotrowski of the Enfield Police Department. She is a strong, independent woman, something that can be a headache for Charlie at the best of times.

Karen is visited by none other than Sunnye Hardcastle, author of the Kit Danger series, a hard-boiled, straight-shootin’ private investigator with nerves of steel. Karen is ecstatic when Sunnye agrees to attend Enfield’s Women’s Studies Conference where Karen is to present a paper and speech on murder in American working class literature.

Sunnye appears to be a s tough as her character, Kit Danger, and always travels with her trusty sidekick, Trouble, a massive Rotweiler with a delight for roast beef sandwiches.

There is something wrong at Enfield College. Rare books are disappearing from the Enfield Special Collections Sections and no one can figure out how the thief is gaining access to the stacks and getting the books out of the building. Some of the questions are answered when a mousy little man, Elwood Munro, is murdered during the Women’s Studies Conference. The police suspect Sunnye Hardcastle was involved in the murder. Karen, much to Charlie’s chagrin, sets out to prove them wrong.

With a shootout at the Enfield corral, Dobson brings The Maltese Manuscript to an exciting conclusion. Dobson’s story is free of stereotypes or cliches and it shows her mettle as a solid mystery writer. If you like a fast-moving erudite mystery, this should meet your needs nicely.”

--Mystery News

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“Oh, what fun—a women’s studies conference on American crime fiction entitled 'Murder: The Pen/Knife and the Patriarchy,' with a keynote address called 'Deconstructing Death: Class Binaries in the Representation of Murder in American Working-Class Discourse, 1845-1945' and seminars on topics like 'Dead Blondes in Red Dresses: Whiteness Studies in American Crime Fiction.' With such manic wit does Joanne Dobson send up academic archness in her fifth campus mystery, The Maltese Manuscript (Poisoned Pen, $24.95). Karen Pelletier, the professorial sleuth in this smart series, has her hands full at the conference, what with baby-sitting a frisky celebrity author, identifying a body in the library and heading the search for some rare books stolen from the college’s special collection—not the Gutenberg Bible but an annotated manuscript of 'The Maltese Falcon,' and all 321 volumes of Beadle’s dime novels...the literary conference is one for the books.”-New York Times Book Review

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"This is the fifth Karen Pelletier mystery, following COLD AND PURE AND VERY DEAD (2000), yet Dobson smoothly reintroduces her characters so that THE

MALTESE MANUSCRIPT can serve as a starting point for readers new to the series. Karen is very funny and admirable, proud of her achievements but also aware of academia's absurdities. The supporting players are charming, as well, from the neurotic professors to Sunnye Hardcastle, who needs to take risks in order to avoid the loneliness of her life. Dobson's plot moves along swiftly to one final, bullet-dodging conclusion that will surprise readers with its twist on the traditional detective mystery."-January Magazine