Mystery & Crime, Peoples & Cultures - Fiction

Death by Degrees

Name: Death by Degrees
Author: Eric Wright
ISBN: 9780786201952

by Eric Wright

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Overview

Death by Degrees gives us Inspector Charlie Salter as we've never seen him before: The sensitive cop, investigating murder in academe, and the troubled son, confronting the possible death of his gravely ill father. For a man who routinely encounters death in the course of his professional life, Salter has a surprisingly difficult time with mortality close to home. There are too many unresolved issues between father and son. Salter seeks a diversion, which he finds in investigating some anonymous letters relating to a recent homicide. Professor Maurice Lyall had been brutally murdered in his home shortly after his election as dean of Toronto's Bathurst College. All signs point to an ordinary robbery turned fatal, but the letters hint at something more. "Why the cover-up? The establishment closing ranks?" "If you are looking for an enemy of Maurice Lyall, you have a wide choice in the groves of academe." "Why have you not looked within for the hand that struck Maurice Lyall down?" Salter assumes the letters were inspired by simple academic malice. There's no evidence that anyone at the college was in any way involved in the murder. When a suspect is arrested, however, Salter fears that the police have accepted too easy an answer. The deeper Salter delves into the case, the more he's convinced that no random stranger caused the professor's death. As one story evolves on the campus and in the city streets, the other focuses on the hospital where Salter spends long hours coming to terms with his own confused feelings about forgiveness and the bonds of family love. Death by Degrees is the best yet in an extraordinary series of crime novels by an internationally acclaimed master of the genre.

The politics and infighting to elect a new dean at Toronto's Bathurst College turns to murder when the winner is discovered dead. Scandal, blackmail and layers of deception line the corridors at the college. And Inspector Charlie Salter must follow them all the way to the dark truth surrounding the killer's identity.