Schooled in Murder by Victoria Gilbert ~ a Review

by Donna Huber

Jennifer ‘Jenn’ Dalton is an author and educator at Clarion University in Virginia. She loves her job, but some of her petty coworkers look down on her for writing genre fiction. As members of the English department, they wish to encourage students to pursue higher literary aspirations. When a humiliating confrontation between an uppity professor and one of Jenn’s students, Mia, escalates, no one thinks much of it. Until his dead body is found along with evidence incriminating Mia.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

January 2025; Crooked Lane Books; 978-1639109234
ebook, print (272 pages); cozy mystery

Schooled in Murder is the start of a new cozy mystery series by Victoria Gilbert. The Campus Sleuth Mysteries series is a sort of spinoff of Gilbert's Blue Ridge Library Mysteries series. If you read that series you will recognize the college Jenn works at - Clairon (it is also the college that Amy Webber's husband Richard Muir works at) and the town Jenn lives in is the same one Amy does.

If you enjoy The Blue Ridge Library series then you will enjoy this one. 

I had a little trouble envisioning Jenn as her own character. For some reason, I kept thinking of the main female character of another series Gilbert writes, A Hunter and Clewe Mystery. 

There is a lot going on in this book. We have to meet the cast of characters. Not only is there the group of regular characters to introduce but also the random community members that are more involved as possible suspects. So I thought it was ambitious to have not one, but two murders. 

I enjoyed the characters and if you enjoy a little romance in your cozy mysteries there is an obvious relationship setup that progresses quickly. 

I liked the mystery and was invested in solving it. I'm not thrilled about how the solving of the mystery unfolded. I like to collect clues and then figure out the person and motive along the way. We had some of that along the way but then Jenn just tells us how it all happened. It felt like "oops, the story has become too long and I need to wrap it up".  

It was still a fun little read - one that is sure to entertain.

Buy Schooled in Murder at Amazon

Donna Huber is an avid reader and natural encourager. She is the founder of Girl Who Reads and the author of how-to marketing book Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour.

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