Wolf by Kelly Oliver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Murder Mystery
“Jessica closed her eyes and imagined a fitting demise for the thesis advisor whose Birkenstocks had stomped on her dream of getting an advanced degree: a quick defenestration, a slow acting poison, or a hard bludgeon to his fat ugly head with the blunt side of an axe. Professor Baldrick Wolfgang Schmutzig, “Preeminent Philosopher” (and World-Class Dickhead) had insulted her for the last time.”
Jessica James is a philosopher student at Northwestern University, a long way from her Montana, trailer park home. She is secretly living in the attic of the philosophy department, sleeping on a desk but she is determined to get her doctorate. Professor Wolf is her thesis advisor and she is also his TA. Her and a couple friends decide to break into his office and snoop around while smoking pot but they find more than what they bargained for. Her thesis, looking untouched with a post dated letter pretty much kicking her out of graduate school and Wolf’s dead body in the bathtub.
“She went to Northwestern to study with Wolf Schmutzig, and then she’d put up with his inappropriate comments and oblique advances for months, only to find out he’d sabotaged her in the end anyway. She shook her head and sighed. She still didn’t know why, but she was going to find out.”
In addition to finding why her professor sabotaged her career and who murdered him, someone keeps putting date rape drugs in her drinks. Jessica isn’t the only girl in school that is being drugged. She and her posse are uncovering a whole ring of guys that are drugging girls and they are determined to give them a taste of their own medicine.
Will Jessica and her friends be able to answer all the questions surrounding them? Who killed the professor? What does it have to do with the Russian mob, drugs on campus, and stolen Russian art?
“‘May the best man win,” he said and then glared over at Jessica and added, “or woman.” Clearly, he preferred Jessica serving drinks instead of playing poker. But, she was used to playing with the boys. High stakes poker, like philosophy, was a man’s game; and in both she was determined to give as good as she got, even if it killed her. Being the only woman at the poker table wasn’t so different from being the only woman at a seminar table.”
An enjoyable murder mystery that keeps you on your toes and guessing what is going to happen next. Jessica James is a funny, clumsy, cowgirl and I can see why she has been compared to Stephanie Plum. The sexy Russian, Poker Tsarina, Lolita is a kick ass woman you wish was your best friend. I hope to have more Nick, billionaire art professor, in the next books in the series. I am certainly rooting for a Jessica-Nick romance to blossom and I don’t care how against the rules that is.
I was expecting a Cozy Mystery and was pleasantly surprised to have a more adult mystery instead. I am definitely putting book 2 on my To Be Read list!
“Jesse James rides again. She blew imaginary smoke from the tips of her index fingers on each hand and then racked in the pot.”
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