From Publishers Weekly
Following her introduction in Murder on Martha's Vineyard, photojournalist Margaret Barlow, whose hobby is hang-gliding, is summoned to her granddaughter Nancy's private girls' school, her own alma mater, in this cozy mystery. A freshman scholarship student at Brides Hall has died mysteriously, apparently having hanged herself on a chapel bell rope. Most of the student body believes it was suicide, but Maryland homicide Lt. Michael Dominic suspects murder, and asks Margaret to find out what the students and the administrators, many of whom are Margaret's old schoolmates, aren't telling the police. Parents' weekend, with an operetta and annual boat race, hampers the police investigation but aids Margaret's investigative efforts. Only the graphic description of an additional, particularly gruesome murder mars the gentility of this satisfying tale featuring Osborn's intrepid middle-aged sleuth. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
New York-based freelance photojournalist Margaret Barlow--50ish, but athletic and younger-looking--drives to Bride's Hall, a girls' school in Maryland, to comfort her granddaughter after a murder there. Herself an alumna with access to insiders, Margaret stays on to assist the investigation at the request of 40ish, disturbingly handsome Lieutenant Dominic. Despite threats, evidence of embezzlement, and further murder, she persists until uncovering the killer. Osborn ( Murder on Martha's Vineyard , Lynx Bks., 1989) crafts a lightweight, but for the most part smoothly written and lively puzzler.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Hot-air balloon enthusiast Margaret Barlow returns to her alma mater, the snobby Brides Hall, to check up on her granddaughter after the death of a scholarship student, Mary Hughes, who was found hanged (murder? suicide?) in the bell tower. Margaret is convinced that Mary's death was murder, and handsome Lt. Dominic prevails upon her to snoop around. She discovers: that her old school-chum and current headmistress, Ellen Nornay, is newly glamorous and now rich; the school treasurer has been fiddling with the books; the student leader is a bully; and Mary may have been killed because of a picture she took and a tape she recorded while bird-watching on neighboring property. Then the school housekeeper is bisected by a descending elevator, and Margaret herself is attacked in a storage room--but recovers in time for the annual grudge race (on the Chesapeake) against Saint Hubert's--during which the guilty party is fortuitously jostled overboard. Excellent depiction of boarding-school life, and Margaret, immensely toned down after Murder on Martha's Vineyard, is a likable, middle-aged sleuth--though the plot she perambulates through is still silly and implausible. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Following her introduction in Murder on Martha's Vineyard, photojournalist Margaret Barlow, whose hobby is hang-gliding, is summoned to her granddaughter Nancy's private girls' school, her own alma mater, in this cozy mystery. A freshman scholarship student at Brides Hall has died mysteriously, apparently having hanged herself on a chapel bell rope. Most of the student body believes it was suicide, but Maryland homicide Lt. Michael Dominic suspects murder, and asks Margaret to find out what the students and the administrators, many of whom are Margaret's old schoolmates, aren't telling the police. Parents' weekend, with an operetta and annual boat race, hampers the police investigation but aids Margaret's investigative efforts. Only the graphic description of an additional, particularly gruesome murder mars the gentility of this satisfying tale featuring Osborn's intrepid middle-aged sleuth. (May)

Library Journal