Murder at the B-School

Publishers Weekly

Some fine description helps offset plot weaknesses in this competent first mystery from former Harvard Business School administrator and financial writer Cruikshank (The Greenspan Effect). When Eric MacInnes, a handsome, rich student at the business school, turns up dead in a whirlpool bath in a campus building, Dean Jim Bishop asks Wim Vermeer, a low-level finance professor headed nowhere, to keep the MacInnes family informed about the investigation. That the dean should select the rather lackluster Vermeer for such a sensitive task isn't particularly plausible. Nevertheless, Vermeer goes to the powerful MacInnes family, whose members are predictably hostile when he tries to placate them. Vermeer bumps into Capt. Barbara Brouillard, the Boston police detective assigned to the case, and they agree to work together, an arrangement that again feels forced. Before they've gotten too far, Eric's purported girlfriend, Jeannette Bartlett, jumps off a bridge and another murder follows. The relationship between Vermeer and Brouillard is feasible up to a point, but the leap it later makes leaves the reader behind. The entertaining picture of the world of academic finance and university politics gives the story a bit of an edge. Agent, Helen Rees. (Oct. 25) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The Harvard Business School's head asks Professor Wim Vermeer to act as liaison between Harvard and the old-monied family of a charismatic but lonely student who drowned in a Jacuzzi. While apparently without enemies or friends, for that matter Eric MacInnes is a disturbing case for Vermeer, who becomes the prime suspect himself after another murder. With the help of police detective Barbara Brouillard, however, he uncovers the truth. Finely crafted prose, fully developed characters, and the distinctive atmosphere of Boston surrounds bode well for this new series. Cruikshank lives in Cambridge, MA. [See Mystery Prepub, LJ 6/1/04.] Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Under constant siege from other prestigious American universities, many of them fictitious, Harvard consolidates its claim as the capital of academic homicide in this colorless debut. When you're going up for tenure and your case looks dire, the next-to-last thing you want is the death of one your former students in a university-owned hot tub. The very last thing, as Prof. Wim Vermeer soon learns, is for the Dean of the Business School to appoint you special liaison to the wealthy family of mourners on the strength of your alleged closeness with the late Eric MacInnes and your current tutelage of his brother James. None of the surviving family members, it seems, is looking for intimacy, certainly not with a mere pedagogue (let alone an assistant professor). The party who is, surprisingly, is Captain Barbara Brouillard of the Boston PD, whose believably no-nonsense manner makes her the most compelling personality here. The MacInnes kin are stock characters out of "an English drawing-room farce and a French costume drama," as Wim aptly notes, and Wim himself is nothing more than a junior faculty type doomed to success despite his most hapless efforts. Saddest of all, wallowing among the forgettable MacInnes clan leaves business writer Cruikshank (The Greenspan Effect, not reviewed, etc.) all too little time to dish dirt on the B-School. Maybe next year, as they say in Boston.