Ruth Dudley Edwards’s rollicking satirical mysteries have heretofore been confined to the British Isles, but now that MURDERING AMERICANS (Poisoned Pen, $24.95) has gotten around to American academia, we can expect to hear howls from the heartland. Through some colossal error in administrative judgment, a liberal arts college in Indiana has invited Baroness Ida Troutbeck, the foul-mouthed, politically iconoclastic and altogether endearing heroine of this series, to grace its campus as a visiting professor. Once in residence, Lady Troutbeck (who insists on being called Jack) finds reason to investigate the behavior of the school provost and the suspicious death of the woman’s predecessor. But the guilty pleasure of this farce is the spectacle of Jack tearing down the precepts of political correctness honored on American campuses, like diversity studies and the tortured nomenclature that designates Indians as “First Citizens.” “I like amusing and constructive anarchy,” Jack says, pausing in her efforts to stir up a student insurrection. Well, so do we, and no one brings down the temple with more outrageous wit and style than Ruth Dudley Edwards.
Doesn't sound like Indiana in the least but how often does any book or movie really get Indiana? Breaking Away did sort of.
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