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Karen Pelletier

This page lists novels that feature the English professor and amateur investigator Karen Pelletier.

 

Karen Pelletier: Novels

Quieter Than Sleep: A Modern Mystery of Emily Dickinson

Joanne Dobson

Doubleday

1997

A Karen Pelletier novel.

"Professor Karen Pelletier's prime literary passion is poet Emily Dickinson--a passion she shares with her hotshot colleague Randy Astin-Berger. Heir apparent to the head of Enfield's English department, the pompous Randy is the campus Casanova. That is, he was - until he was found strangled with his own flashy necktie. The last person to see Randy alive--and the first to find him dead - Karen knows she must solve the case before she becomes the prime suspect. But to do that, she must first discover the truth behind Randy's final Dickinsonian discovery - a literary bombshell that may well have been to die for."
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The Northbury Papers: A Modern Mystery Of Academic Proportions

Joanne Dobson

Doubleday

1998

A Karen Pelletier novel.

"As the case progresses, Professor Pelletier - intrepid researcher, defender of women's rights, and soldier on the front lines of the fight for academic progress - finds herself doing battle not only with an unknown killer but also with her own department chair; being threatened by the president of the board of trustees; and falling victim to the aristocratic charms of her college president. Any one of these peccadilloes, she realizes, might easily spell academic death to an untenured member of the faculty. And, in an ironic twist on the old professorial adage, it begins to look as if Karen's determination to publish (the biography of a woman whose writing her colleagues look upon as trash) might actually cause her to perish - professionally, and perhaps in the decidedly non-metaphoric sense as well."
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The Raven and the Nightingale: A Modern Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe

Joanne Dobson

Doubleday

1999

A Karen Pelletier novel.

"When feisty young Professor Karen Pelletier receives a serendipitious scholarly bonanza in the form of never-before-seen manuscripts and journals by the nineteenth-century poet Emmeline Foster, who is rumored to have killed herself for the love of Edgar Allan Poe, she finds herself going head-to-head with Enfield College's resident Edgar Allan Poe expert, Elliot Corbin, an academic windbag of monumental proportions. When Corbin is stabbed to death in mysterious circumstances, Karen has an airtight alibi, but other academic suspects abound. Then it begins to look more and more as if Corbin's death may be inextricably entwined with the muse of his life--poet of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. State police investigator, Lieutenant Piotrowski, calls on Karen's literary expertise, and she is involved once more in the thankless task of investigating her not-so-collegial colleagues."
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Cold and Pure and Very Dead

Joanne Dobson

Doubleday

2000

A Karen Pelletier novel.

"When a New York Times reporter ends an interview with Karen by asking her to name the best novel of the twentieth century, she glibly picks the steamy potboiler Oblivion Falls, a long-forgotten tome that caused a sensation forty years ago. After Karen’s comment renews interest in Oblivion Falls, the book quickly climbs onto the bestseller charts — and now everyone wants to know what became of the book’s long-vanished author, Mildred Deakin. The reporter who broke the story finally tracks her down - and is rewarded for his efforts by being shot dead in the writer’s driveway. When Mildred is arrested for murder, Karen feels obligated to investigate further. And what she discovers, as she probes the long-forgotten publishing drama surrounding Oblivion Falls, is almost as shocking as the book itself - and far more deadly."
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The Maltese Manuscript

Joanne Dobson

Poisoned Pen Press

2003

A Karen Pelletier novel.

"In classic noir tradition, English professor Karen Pelletier gains a client when her office door opens and a famous crime novelist enters. The author is dogged by Trouble, a Rottweiler, and by a problem. And since the tough-gal celebrity writer, Sunnye Hardcastle, is keynote speaker at the upcoming Enfield College Women's Studies conference on Crime Fiction, Karen is hooked. Little does she expect a priceless manuscript to be stolen from the college library, the thief to be found dead in the library's closed stacks, and her famous client to be suspected of both crimes. All this occurs smack dab in the middle of a feminist conference on the crime novel, and Karen must use her investigative skills to detect which of the many conferees has set out to Deconstruct Death."
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Death Without Tenure

Joanne Dobson

Poisoned Pen Press

2009

A Karen Pelletier novel.

"Professor Karen Pelletier is about to realize her dream; after six years in the English Department at New England’s exclusive Enfield College, she is up for tenure. Then Professor Joseph Lone Wolf, her rival for the one tenured spot in the department, whose ethnicity gives him minority-preference status, is found dead from an overdose of Peyote buttons. First on the list of suspects, Karen is harassed by a homicide cop with a grudge against his colleague, the love of Karen’s life, Lieutenant Charlie Piotrowski. On campus, political passions rage. Two of Karen’s favorite students, Khalida Ahmed, a hijab-wearing Muslim, and Hank Brody, a coal-miner’s son on full scholarship, are caught up in the furor. Without the presence of her beloved Charlie, now serving a tour of duty with the National Guard in Iraq, will Karen be able to survive the investigation, protect her students, and find a permanent niche in the world of academe? And what if the killer feels the need to strike again?"
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In the Attic

Joanne Dobson

Kindle edition

2016

A Karen Pelletier short story.

"Professor Karen Pelletier visits a recluse poet and finds an ancient murder."
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Last updated August 2018