In the Shadow of King's - Hardcover

Kelly, Nora

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002313960 ISBN 13: 9780002313964

Publisher: Collins Crime, 1984

Synopsis

Alistair Greenwood, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, hosts a luncheon at his faultless 17th Century home. Its perfection is marred by the incompatability of the guests and the arrogance of the host. Gillian Adams, an American scholar revisiting the unversity while on sabbatical from Vancouver, finds it distasteful, but she's truly appalled when the eminent Greenwood is gunned down the next day while listening to her lecture. Involved as a witness, she's also hooked into the case by her friendship with Edward Gisborne of the Yard, who had come to hear her and remains to capture Greenwood's killer.... This debut novel, first published in 1983, is polished in its plotting and its prose and beautifully depicts Cambridge, doing for that ""ancient seat of learning what Dorothy L. Sayers did long ago for Oxford in Gaudy Night.""

About this title

Review:

In the month or so since Teri began this thread, I've tried several authors new to me and recommended at various times on DorothyL. Far and away the best find was Nora Kelly's IN THE SHADOW OF KING'S, the first in a series featuring Gillian Adams, a Canadian history professor on sabbatical in England in this one. As she prepares to deliver a guest lecture at Cambridge, there's an absolutely wonderful description of her listeners:
""The audience shuffled towards the plastic chairs, the older members occupying the seats at the front. Rows of faces seamed with age, bodies bent and crabbed with disuse, bald heads, liver spots, and myopia confronted Gillian. Dressed like scarecrows, but clothed in wisdom, the venerable historians of Cambridge awaited her words.""
Unfortunately only #1 and #4 are currently in print, with #2 and #3 to be reissued over the next few months. As I prefer to read in order, guess I'll just have to wait.
-- Margaret Carroll

From the Back Cover:

Historian Gillian Adams has returned to King's College, Cambridge, at the invitation of Alistair Greenwood, the brilliant though cold and egotistical Regius Professor. But after she has delivered her lecture and the applause begins to fade, Greenwood is dramatically shot dead before her eyes.

As a witness, and as a friend of Edward Gisborne, the Scotland Yard detective seconded to the investigation, Gillian is doubly involved, though the quest for Greenwood's murderer promises to be complex...after all, there are so many with good reason to wish him dead.

‘Good strong characters and a well-depicted Cambridge background’
TIMES LIBERTY SUPPLEMENT

‘Suspicions are neatly divided and there's a plausible line in academic rascality’
GUARDIAN

About this edition

• Publisher: Collins Crime
• Publication date: 1984
• ISBN 10: 0002313960
• ISBN 13: 9780002313964
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 200