Female Academic Detectives
35
templates Poe, the discursive function” 39)], Karen keeps quiet but thinks, “I’d
heard it all before. I’ve read Foucault; I am, after all, a late-twentieth century liter
ary critic and my thinking has been indelibly impacted by postmodern theorizing.
But I wouldn’t want to imagine the response in a freshman classroom to the blood
less suggestion that we discuss the badly behaved and deliciously fascinating Edgar
Allan Poe as a discursive function ” (40).
In her detective work, Karen sometimes gets herself in trouble with her stub
born persistence, original but sometimes misguided ideas, and a healthy dose of
self-interest. In Quieter than Sleep, she forgets to relay important info to the po
lice; in The Northbury Papers, she trespasses in order to pursue her research. In
Dobson’s latest novel, Cold and Pure and Very Dead, Karen is pressured to butt
out of the police investigation, but makes her way back in as a not-so-welcome
literary investigator. While Karen doesn’t solve cases independently, her individual
ventures, persistence, and academic expertise help solve the mystery - as does her
propensity to put herself in danger.
Henrie O, the 60-something ex-journalist and professor/detective of Carolyn
Hart’s Death in Lover's Lane, is a true independent spirit, not really settled any
where for long (she is also the reappearing sleuth of several other mysteries not set
in academia - most of which take place during her family trips or other travel
adventures). In this mystery, set in a Midwestern college, Henrie O is a temporary
journalism professor (retired from a successful journalism career), widowed and
living alone, involved - or rather, not very involved - in a long-distance relation
ship with a man she later lets go. Courageous, resourceful, and sarcastic, a strong
believer in true investigative journalism and in academic integrity, she becomes
involved in a triple mystery when one of her students is killed during her investiga
tive research, research Henrie encouraged, if not required, her to do. Motivated in
part by a sense of responsibility, even guilt, but also by her strong professional and
personal convictions, Henrie O sets out to solve all four mysteries: her student’s
death, and the three mysteries she was apparently close to solving at the time of
her death. During the course of the investigation, Henrie O antagonizes the police,
colleagues and campus officials; gets involved in risky break-ins and meetings
with dangerous figures; and works largely on her own, solving the intertwined
mysteries, which involve campus scandals and politics, almost single-handedly.
As in other Henrie O mysteries, she has friends in various places, but is not part of
a closely-knit community of any kind - in part because many of these mysteries
take place during vacations.
Sarah Deane, the amateur sleuth of J.S. Borthwick’s novels, isn’t always in
volved in academic mysteries (other adventures occur on trips and vacations), but
in The Student Body and Coupe de Grace, her independent individualism is in part
due to her slight outsider status in academia: in the former, Sarah is a new graduate