Faculty of Murder

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By June Wright & Lucy Sussex

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Publisher Description

Mother Paul, June Wright’s beloved nun-detective, returns to her sleuthing ways after she takes up a new position as warden of a student hall of residence at the University of Melbourne. No sooner has Judith Mornane arrived on campus than she startles her fellow residents by announcing her intention to discover the murderer of her sister, who disappeared from the same dorm a year earlier. The ever-curious Mother Paul is drawn to investigate what happened to Judith’s sister—did she simply run off for reasons best known to herself, as the police concluded, or could it be she really was murdered? Was her disappearance perhaps linked to a tragedy that happened at around the same time—the accidental drowning (in her bathtub) of the wife of one of the college’s professors? Was that drowning in fact as accidental as the official investigation suggested? Mother Paul believes the two events are connected somehow, and a further tragedy, the faked-suicide death of one of her student charges, convinces her that a particularly cruel and clever murderer is still at work within the college. She is not above a little subterfuge in the interest of discovering the truth and moves her colleagues, the students, and even the police around like so many figures on a chessboard until finally, amid high drama, the murderer is revealed.

3 Reviews

3.0

CStew

Created 10 months ago

“When the new scholarship student, Judith Mornane, arrived at Brigid Moore College, she announces that her sister, Maureen, the previous scholarship student who went missing the previous year, was murdered. A body was never discovered, so Judith's claim is first explained away as the emotion of a grieving sister, but we soon discover that Judith has compelling reasons for suspecting foul play. More deaths follow Judith's announcement. Mother Paul and Elizabeth Drew must act quickly before the murder strikes again. I loved Mother Paul's enigmatic personality seen through the third person perspective of Elizabeth Drew, a tutor at Brigid Moore College. Mother Paul seems too old and vague to take over the reins at Brigid Moore, but as Elizabeth, her fellow tutors, and students discover, she is incredibly cluey and not to be underestimated, much like Agatha Christie's Miss Marple. Elizabeth's own character arc is satisfying. When we meet her, she is a reluctant tutor with little care for her students, biding her time till she can marry her fiancé and escape the academic doldrums. By the end, however, her involvement in solving the case shows her that she will always feel some affection towards the job, and she is more supportive of her fiancé's academic career, now that he can see the value in involving her rather than trying to keep her out of it. The insightful introduction by Lucy Sussex tells us that Wright created the character of Mother Paul because older, unmarried women in that context would experience fewer impediments to their investigations. By being too old to be considered beautiful, overlooked, and beyond their sexual prime, they are taken seriously by authorities and able to get about unescorted without question. The students at the university are a real piece of work, prone to bullying and cruel pranks to gain or reinforce their social position. All but Judith are arrogant and blissfully unaware of the privilege of university education, particularly for women at that time. Like 'Gaudy Night', the novel offers a thoughtful discussion on the financial and social advantages enjoyed by the tertiary educated which those who cannot afford tertiary education are barred from. The girls at Brigid Moore are destined to be the next generation of doctors and welfare workers, but they lack the requisite empathy for these jobs; something that no amount of study can teach them. The academics are hardly better, with the Dean covering up his affair with Mrs Crask, Mrs Crask grooming the male students at Manning College, and Professor Crask (Mrs Crask's husband) flirting indiscriminately with the female students and staff, including Elizabeth who is engaged to be married. Perhaps as an extension to the retirement of her previous heroine, Wright explores the precarity of courtship for women in the 1930s. Elizabeth has been engaged to Timothy for two years and Timothy is so focused on his obscure branch of research that he's delaying the wedding so long that people are asking questions about their relationship, and Professor Crask's advances are becoming more intrusive. Elizabeth has to decide whether to break off the engagement and find another husband or to pluck up the courage to make him see the absurdity and unfairness of his excuses and delays which are disadvantaging her more than him. Fortunately, Mother Paul has a plan, and a rather cheeky one at that (for a nun). This subplot reveals Elizabeth's insecurities and highlights the sacrifices Mother Paul has made for her faith and profession in forsaking courtship. This Australian homage to Dorothy L. Sayers' 'Gaudy Night' was clever and enjoyable. You don’t have to have read 'Gaudy Night' to appreciate it, but you would enjoy the intertextuality. I recommend 'Faculty of Murder' to fans of Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie.”

Kara

Created over 1 year ago