The Edith Wharton Murders - Lev Raphael

[PaperMoon]

Coming from an academia work environment, I’m already attuned to the politics and tensions inherent within the lay of hallowed University grounds – and am quite willingly prepared to sit through another of Raphael’s solidly written tales set at the State University of Michigan’s Department of English, American Studies and Rhetoric. The writing style is as usual infused with witty barbs and sardonic descriptions of almost larger than life characters who inhabit the lecture halls, conference rooms and campus buildings of Nick Hoffmann’s world – academics, writers, publishers, students, senior University administrative beaurocrats, extreme right wing homophobic fundy-religious types. As further incentive – the reader gets invited into Nicky’s tasteful home (which he shares with sexy hirsuit boyfriend of 12 years, Stefan) to partake of their remarkably taste-bud tempting meals … the early-on description of preparing Pasta Puttanesca (translated whore’s pasta) made me stop reading to dash to my pantry to see if I had the ingredients on hand to make up a batch of my own – yumm!

This second volume in the series sees Nick and Stefan’s relationship stabilised at a new equilibium (with some reservations) more than a year post the saga of Stefan’s ex-lover appearing on the scene and then being knocked off. Tensions and high drama arise when Nick’s department votes to stage/host a major literary conference celebrating a female author to counter socio-political cries of sexism and anti-discrimination within University ranks. Nick is blackmailed into planning and running the conference – especially since he’s the resident bibliographic expert and know-it all about this chosen writer – Edith Wharton. One would be forgiven to think such a conference would be easily run and quite tedious to sit through but no … there are two rival Wharton literary camps – members of each whom detest each other – such is the high feelings aroused regarding literary interpretations of the lady’s writings as well as of the lady herself. Throw in a couple of controversial best selling pop-writers with attitude galore, declamations of plagiarism, viciously nasty book reviews, a couple of cases of extreme writer-rivalry/jealousy, some clandestine bisexual bedroom affairs, stalking lesbians, anti-gay campaigners out to rid the campus of gay libertine corruption of the young student minds – naturally murder most-foul would be attending harassed Nick’s Wharton conference! Copies of Wharton’s books are found with each body – is there a twisted serial killer at work?? I started second-guessing which Wharton novel would be found alongside the next victim.

Several characters from the first title in the series make a comeback, and on a welcome and positive note would be the re-appearance of Nick’s nemesis – campus police inspector Valley who projects a less hostile / homophobic air this time round. For the foodie lovers – we get Steak Dianne, spinach linguine, basil tomato penne, crabmeat mousse with dill, various chardonnays, Mandarin Napoleon, Vietnamese restaurant fare, breakfast waffles etc etc etc. For movie buffs – there are references and allegories made to films/characters such as Bringing Up Baby, Island of Lost Souls, Fatal Attraction, Laura, Chariots of Fire …. Marlene Dietrich and Margaret Dumont! The heightened air of danger or menace seems less in this novel compared to the first book in the series – at no time did I feel Nick was endangering himself through his sleuthing work and determination to save his academic hide from being fired.

I appreciate the continuing detailed evolution of Nick and Stefan’s relationship and domestic life but was rather thrown emotionally when one of the main characters was killed off. As an aside, I cannot believe the number of Wharton-based movies I’ve actually viewed over the past decade – some of whose main characters were quite emotionally torturous to follow (I really did want to reach into the TV monitor and slap Gillian Anderson’s Lily Bart in The House of Mirth or administer the chloral myself at the end). Having just finished this whodunnit – I am resolved not to start reading Ethan Frome or Age of Innocence etc anytime soon LOL!

[Ulysses]

Here's my take on book two. I've known Raphael's work for thirty years...but I just discovered these...
Lev Raphael published his Nick Hoffman mysteries back in the 1990s, and has recently reintroduced them as e-books. These books do something that is hugely important to me: they offer murder mysteries with interesting characters and superior writing, and feature a longtime gay couple as the centerpiece of the stories. There are other couples and other relationships swirling about in the atmosphere around Nick and Stephan, but these two men are at the core of the story.

“The Edith Wharton Murders” is the second of eight Nick Hoffman books, and takes place in the fictionalized Michigan university town where Nick is a writing professor and Stephan is the writer in residence. There are sly little joking references to Miss Marple and Jessica Fletcher in the story, but there is also a strong overlay of the English writer David Lodge, whose best known novels revolve around the internecine politics of university life in the UK.

Surely there is a conscious reflection of Raphael’s own life in academe here, but his portrayal of the absurdity and tragic pettiness of the world of Edith Wharton scholars (an author whose work I personally love, to a point) is delicious. As Nick desperately tries to control the Wharton conference he has been forced to organize, and as he continues to manage the hurt he feels from Stephan’s emotional betrayal in the previous (first) book, we feel alternating waves of sympathy, disbelief and comic giddiness as the entire procedure begins to spin off its axis.

And, as I said, at the hub of this swirl of personalities and college life, are these two men, in their mid-thirties, settled, happy in their life together in spite of the inevitable pain and hurt that longtime relationships often embrace. There is no overt sex in this book, and there doesn’t need to be. There is nothing in this book to make the straight world queasy-except, of course, the sharp focus on the gay men themselves. This intense visibility, Nick and Stephan’s motivating force at the core of this novel, is probably enough to ensure that a large part of the mystery-reading audience won’t touch it. For all the advances in politics in the world – right up to universal recognition of same-gender marriage this year – our visibility still makes the other 95% squirm.

So, for all their charm and their readability, Lev Raphael’s Nick Hoffman books are important to me for this reason. How lucky I am that they’re so good.

[Julie Austin]

Michael Craft was kind enough to start me on my journey into the subgenre of gay mysteries. I've been a fan of the mystery genre since I was a little girl and began reading mysteries in series when they first hit my public library's shelves. Unfortunately, I live in a big town in Texas where some of the books I've longed to read are still considered "subversive". (But more of that later.)

I love Lev Raphael's series about Nick Hoffman. Thank the good Lord for the Internet where I can order books I can't even find for sale in the bookstore! I've read the first 3 in the series and will eventually read the other 5. I personally don't care the orientation of the "detective" in the books I read; I care more about good writing, characters and story line. Something I have found in gay mystery books I don't find often enough in straight mystery books is a lot of my kind of humor.