“You’ve obviously done your homework, which is of course the reason you have to die.”

105. Experimental Film – Gemma Files

When isn’t something a woman was doing academically ruined by some rich dude who thinks his money makes him better? When? Okay, there’s an example in this book in that the lady who is being researched as potentially Canada’s first female filmmaker, Iris Whitcomb, had a husband who was rich who supported her and didn’t try to take all the credit for her films himself. However, Wrob, yes, “Wrob,” is not that kind of guy. He wants all the credit and he will ruin lives and buildings and films and be lurking in the background like a creeper while Lois Cairns tries to get to the bottom of the films and the legend of Lady Midday and Iris Whitcomb herself.

Lois, meanwhile, without all the money in the universe, is trying to raise her autistic son Clark with her own decent man human husband Simon and also trying to do her work. She’s a former film teacher and once she gets an idea of how important to films of Mrs. Whitcomb are, she would like to be able to do her work and figure it out. The exact kind of project that will not only lead her to the brink of her health and puts her in that position where people who would like her to be more of a mother and not a working mother are totally judging her and acting like one role in a woman’s life is enough as long as that role is mother…like you can’t care about more than one thing at a time if you have a child.

This book really had a lot of suspensefully creepy parts. It took me a while to get into it, in part because the concept of academic competition really turns my stomach so Wrob and Lois being rivals bothered me, and in part because it’s kind of densely packed at the beginning. However, once it started creeping me out and Lois and her assistant Safie were on their way to ruin trying to figure things out, I was along for the ride.

Murderface is not afraid of any rivals. She protected her children from all entities and annoying academics.