Simon Said (A St. Martin's dead letter mystery) - Softcover

"Shaber...gives us a delightful new protagonist in Professor Simon Shaw...a most auspicious introduction."-- "Washington Times""Engaging...A witty academic murder mystery."-- "News and Observer" (Raleigh, NC)"[Shaber] charm[s] us with her personable prof and her warm, vibrant portrait of small-town Southern life."-- "The New York Times Book Review"

With the distinguished Bloodsworth House surrounded by yellow scene-of-the-crime tape, Professor Simon Shaw suspects that Kenan College might be less of a bastion of ivory-tower serenity than it appears. For behind the imposing Greek columns sits the original three-room house built in 1785, where Simon's archaeologist friend, Dr. David Morgan, is conducting a dig. But before the archaeologist has unearthed the colonial-era artifacts he had hoped to find, he uncovers a body - a woman's body, decayed, and with a bullet through the back of her head. Simon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Kenan College's youngest full-time professor, knows the house better than anybody; he even wrote a book for the college gift shop about the historic building. It's only natural that Dr. Morgan call his friend to the excavation site to hear what Simon has to say about the sinister find. When Simon determines the body to be that of the heiress to the Bloodsworth estate, missing since 1926, he finds himself investigating an unsolved crime dating back to that year. With the help of David and fellow professor Julia McGloughlan, Simon works to get to the bottom of a seventy-year-old mystery that someone would like to keep unsolved for centuries to come.