Dying in Discord by
Judith Cutler
This is another of the well-known series by Judith Cutler, a former Secretary of the Crime
Writer's Association. There have been eight previous books, all with 'Dying' in the title
and featuring her heroine Sophie Rivers, who as teacher in a Birmingham College of
Further Education, has obvious similarities to the author herself.
Sophie is an inveterate nosey-parker, who constantly gets involved in intrigues and
murders, usually associated with academic, literary or musical institutions in the West
Midlands. Her partner - in this book, now secret husband - plays cricket for England and
seems to be absent most of the time, his place being partly taken by an old flame, who is
a CID Superintendent.
In this book, Sophie is on a sabbatical from her crummy college, taking a M.Ed. in a local
university, but has time not only to run a private catering service, but to haunt the Music
Department, where she sings, accompanies and becomes a reluctant mother figure to a
bunch of music students. The intrigues develop into sexual harassment, where the staff
are selling good grades for salacious favours and then progresses into multiple murder. If
this is what goes on in Music and Education departments, thank God I spent my academic
career in a Faculty of Medicine!
The first half of the book is a bit slow in terms of any action, being taken up with the
whinging and petty spats of staff and students, then cranks itself up later on, when
corpses abound. The dust cover says a tenth Sophie Rivers is on the stocks and this
highlights the common problem of successful series where the main character is an
amateur sleuth, yet constantly comes across cadavers. In police stories, at least crime is
their business and they are daily involved in its investigation - though Morse has
probably made Oxford a more murderous city than New York, relative to its population
and by now, Midsomer Murders must have decimated a couple of villages!
Once again , we need the old suspension of disbelief, a property often required in our
reading enjoyment, from Miss Marples to Lord Peter Wimsey!
Judith Cutler's first-person prose is faultless and highly readable - but just don't enrol in
any second-rate Midlands colleges, it's too dangerous.
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