Nick Hoffman, the crime-solving Edith Wharton scholar who's starred in three previous mysteries by Lev Raphael, still doesn't have tenure. His boyfriend Stefan's position in the English department at the State University of Michigan is a little more secure, but Stefan's career as a novelist is stalled in traffic, and the appointment of the gratuitously nasty Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Camille Cypriani--"a cross between Anita Brookner and Judith Krantz"--to a newly endowed chair in the department isn't doing much for their relationship. But that may also have something to do with the strange attraction that Nick, who's never been sexually interested in women, suddenly feels for Juno Dromgoole, the outsized and outrageous professor who's counting on his support in her quest for chairmanship of the department.

The English and Rhetoric faculty are already in an uproar over downgrades in status and pay, and on the heels of Camille's controversial appointment, a rumor that a new department of "White Studies" is in the offing sweeps the campus, further highlighting the intense rivalries and petty politics of the university. Then Camille is strangled with a leopard-print scarf that looks suspiciously like Juno's, and Nick's own life is threatened. It falls to Nick's cousin Sharon, a plucky woman whose problems are a lot graver than academic infighting, to point him in the right direction and wrap up the somewhat muddled plot.

Raphael is fast with the wisecracks and heavy with the references to pop culture. He's clearly spent a lot of time watching slasher movies and reading suspense thrillers, which fits neatly with the oversubscribed class Nick teaches on the mystery novel but detracts from the narrative's pacing. It may be time for Raphael to take Nick out of the ivied halls and put his smarts to work in another setting. But if murder in the groves of academe is your thing, consider Little Miss Evil as an extra credit assignment. --Jane Adams


From Publishers Weekly
Professor Nick Hoffman's fall semester gets off to a rocky start in the fourth of Raphael's amusing academic mysteries (The Death of a Constant Lover, etc.). When arrogant, bestselling author Camille Cypriani, "a cross between Anita Brookner and Judith Krantz," receives an endowed chair at the State University of Michigan, the normally rancorous English department turns into a festering zone of envy and resentment. The high-salaried appointee's office displaces a beloved, small library, while other professors are shunted to windowless quarters in the basement. Meanwhile, someone in the department is harassing Nick with threatening messages and vandalism; his lover, Stefan, the writer-in-residence, is in a funk over Camille's appointment and his own less-than-stellar sales; Nick's favorite cousin is facing risky surgery to remove a tumor near her brain; and Nick himself becomes confused when he finds himself attracted to the loud and sexy (and very female) professor of Canadian literature. The campus situation worsens when the university president speaks out for the creation of a Department of White Studies, setting off faculty and student protests. Nick and Stefan survive the upheaval in style and solve the inevitable murder of the resented new colleague. This satire of academia is an enjoyable diversion, despite its uneven, late-developing plot, its flat characterizations of Nick's co-workers-cum-murder suspects, and its author's tendency to stud his prose with glib name-dropping instead of substantive detail. Agent, Curtis Brown Ltd. (May) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Because of previous sleuthing at the State University of Michigan (The Death of a Constant Lover), professor Nick Hoffman finds himself out of favor with the administration but popular with students. Who, then, is responsible for the threatening notes, the smoke-scented paperback, the immolated mailbox, and the vandalized office? Gossip, conjecture, and fidgeting ensue as Nick, longtime partner Stefan, and ex-model cousin Sharon try to figure things out. Only when bitter resentment over departmental politics erupts in murder does all become clear. Raphael compensates for a skimpy plot with an overextended exposition; however, this series addition will still appeal to fans. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The Washington Post
Lev Raphael's Little Miss Evil is a non-traditional mystery of surprising depth, a book with a flippant exterior enriched by unexpectedly moving explorations of the narrator's emotional life. It is also a gentle-spirited, genuinely funny novel of modern manners.


From Booklist
The fourth in Raphael's Nick Hoffman series is set once again at the mythical State University of Michigan, where hordes of academics equivalent to migrant workers labor as teaching assistants, adjuncts, and gypsy scholars officed in mildewed basements. Add a few tenured professors, all eager to claw up the ladder, preferably by stepping on someone else's head, and you have only to throw in fat, ugly, stupid, and badly dressed administrators to round out the cast of Raphael's usual suspects. These vipers in the grove academe are seething with envy as Camille Cypriani, best-selling trash novelist, is awarded a well-endowed chair. Her arrival coincides with threats to Nick in the form of cryptic messages, a burnt-out mailbox, and a vandalized office. A corpse seems destined to appear, but the long-awaited murder occurs more than three-quarters of the way into the book, with Nick's deduction close on its heels--dubious pacing that flies in the face of murder mystery traditions. Raphael should re-think this departure from form in forthcoming books. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Lambda Book Report, October 2000
Raphael writes with ease and obvious joy, raising a flag to the Zeitgeist with gleeful abandon. His pacing hums along brilliantly while his descriptions never lack for flavor.... A convivial read, Little Miss Evil doesn't require a high degree of sleuthing capabilities on the part of the reader. It's loaded with spry, humorous characterizations and biting side comments, and Raphael's gift for detail is both astounding and useful.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

It appears that Nick Hoffman￯﾿ﾽs career is finally moving in the right direction, and the celebrity that comes with solving murders has brought him more students than he can possibly handle. But things are never calm at the State University of Michigan: Nick￯﾿ﾽs partner￯﾿ﾽs career seems to be spiraling down and out of control; a new faculty member is causing a lot of nasty talk; and cryptic messages are showing up in Nick￯﾿ﾽs mailbox. With a brilliant eye for detail and a scalpel as a pen, Lev Raphael continues to skewer the academic community while providing mystery fans with tantalizing and entertaining puzzles. Little Miss Evil is the fourth novel in Raphael￯﾿ﾽs highly acclaimed series.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Professor Nick Hoffman's fall semester gets off to a rocky start in the fourth of Raphael's amusing academic mysteries (The Death of a Constant Lover, etc.). When arrogant, bestselling author Camille Cypriani, "a cross between Anita Brookner and Judith Krantz," receives an endowed chair at the State University of Michigan, the normally rancorous English department turns into a festering zone of envy and resentment. The high-salaried appointee's office displaces a beloved, small library, while other professors are shunted to windowless quarters in the basement. Meanwhile, someone in the department is harassing Nick with threatening messages and vandalism; his lover, Stefan, the writer-in-residence, is in a funk over Camille's appointment and his own less-than-stellar sales; Nick's favorite cousin is facing risky surgery to remove a tumor near her brain; and Nick himself becomes confused when he finds himself attracted to the loud and sexy (and very female) professor of Canadian literature. The campus situation worsens when the university president speaks out for the creation of a Department of White Studies, setting off faculty and student protests. Nick and Stefan survive the upheaval in style and solve the inevitable murder of the resented new colleague. This satire of academia is an enjoyable diversion, despite its uneven, late-developing plot, its flat characterizations of Nick's co-workers-cum-murder suspects, and its author's tendency to stud his prose with glib name-dropping instead of substantive detail. Agent, Curtis Brown Ltd. (May) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

Because of previous sleuthing at the State University of Michigan (The Death of a Constant Lover), professor Nick Hoffman finds himself out of favor with the administration but popular with students. Who, then, is responsible for the threatening notes, the smoke-scented paperback, the immolated mailbox, and the vandalized office? Gossip, conjecture, and fidgeting ensue as Nick, longtime partner Stefan, and ex-model cousin Sharon try to figure things out. Only when bitter resentment over departmental politics erupts in murder does all become clear. Raphael compensates for a skimpy plot with an overextended exposition; however, this series addition will still appeal to fans. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

New York Times Book Review

The Borgias would not be bored at the State University of Michigan, that snake pit of academic politics, where Lev Raphael's soothing sleuth, Nick Hoffman, teaches composition and stanches blood feuds among the faculty.

Murder Ink

Full of wisecracks, wit and pithy observations on the pitfalls of the 'genteel' academic life. I love this series!

Kirkus Reviews

Raphael's fourth continues his oh-so-bitchy and totally, totally true peek at the petty little lives of the petty little professors in a non-grant producing department at the fictional State University of Michigan (SUM). Already snubbed by higher-ups, including dimwitted President Littleterry and loathsome Dean Bullerschmidt, the faculty of the English and Rhetoric (EAR) department find themselves further beset by the appointment of cruel and imperious Camille Cypriani, best-selling novelist, to a newly-created chaired professorship. Cypriani's conquest of the department library, which she converts into an office befitting her august station, doesn't really bother lowly nontenured Nick Hoffman (The Death of a Constant Lover, 1999, etc.)—even though his occasional sleuthing has got him exiled to the basement along with Brian Summerscale, former chair of Western Civilization, which was unceremoniously merged with EAR by a cost-conscious administration. But her supplanting Nick's lover, Stefan, as SUM's leading literary light makes him seethe. As does a series of anonymous threats—death wishes under his windshield wiper, a scorched volume of Dante in his mailbox, and a torched copy of his Wharton bibliography in his wastebasket. Still, his colleagues are too busy stabbing each other in the back to offer Nick much help, or to mount a serious protest against Cypriani's unorthodox hiring, until disaster strikes right under their noses. No real detective work to speak of; like Dorothy, Nick finds in the end that the answer to all his problems was under his nose all along. But this trip to Oz is a joy throughout, thanks mostly to heroes with brains, heart,andnerve to spare.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Nick Hoffman is back, relegated to the basement of his college so he won't get into trouble. But when someone torches his mailbox, Nick gets the hint that an arsonist is carrying a flame for him. As ever, Lev Raphael is witty, biting and on the nail when it comes to the groves and gripes of academe, majoring in mayhem and murder along the way. (Ian Rankin, author of Dead Souls) — Ian Rankin

It's been said that academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small. Lev Raphael's satiric eye and the ironic voice of his refined but supremely sensible protagonist, Nick Hoffman, illuminate this exotic world for those of us on the outside. No one understands or conveys the comic reality-and murderous potential-of the trivial and tremendous pressures of campus life as well as Lev Raphael. (S.J. Rozan, author of Stone Quarry) — S. J. Rozan