This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. The words just flew off the pages, and put me in London with Gillian. When I can look at the people I have found a good read.

After the death of her mother, Gillian Adams has decided that life is too short not to spend time with the people that she loves. To achieve that, she has sold her home in Vancouver and moved to London where she shares a flat with her lover, Edward, a detective with Scotland Yard. She also renews her friendship with Charlotte and Charlotte's daughter, Olivia. Gillian becomes concerned when she finds out that Olivia is being stalked by a disturbed young man named Kevin and when Charlotte dies under mysterious circumstances the race is on to stop the killer. I have read the entire series, starting with In The Shadow Of King's c1984, and have enjoyed these highly literate novels that follow Gillian and Edward from Cambridge to Vancouver to London. Highly recommended.

This book is the story of one mountie wife and all mountie wives. The long hours alone while their husbands face danger and possible death; the less than generous pay and allowances; the need to meet RCMP standards and requirements without any RCMP understanding or support -- all mountie wives will be able to relate to Nora Kelly's frustration with the force. They will also likely be able to relate to her eventual appreciation for the history of this great Canadian peacekeeping institution and her admiration of the many accomplishments of her mountie, his partners and the force. Very readable and very fresh, this book is also a compelling personal look at an important and fascinating time in Canadian history. There are two other fine companion books co-authored by Nora Kelly and her husband William H. Kelly -- "Policing the Fringe: A Young Mountie's Story" and "Policing in Wartime: One Mountie's Story".

Those who know Gillian Adams will learn more about her in this, the fourth novel, because Gillian Adams has come home. And while she's home she meets up with old friends and old wounds. Gillian is lecturing at Stanton College near by and living with her mother Estelle and a cat named Rumpole. A student from her class is found dead and the result is murder. When an old acquaintance is arrested as a suspect Gillian doubts his guilt and goes in search of the truth. Her mother who has a weak heart can't help but put in her two cents and later Gillian receives a visitor who also can't help but get involved.

I enjoyed Old Wounds it was well done. Suspects are pointed out one by one as the twists and turns take us through this academic whodunit. I think readers will identify with Gillian as she remembers her past, deals with forgotten emotions and makes plans for the future. I found her relationship with her mother interesting. In Chapter 12, there is a scene where they discuss something they do have in common, solving the mystery, and Gillian has come home boasting of a clue and Estelle becomes indignant and reminds her that she is playing the part of Watson, not Holmes. To me, that moment was very poignant as to how we try to hold on to the parent role no matter the age of our children. Poisoned Pen Press will publish Gillian Adams first three mysteries. In the Shadow of King's was put out in August; Bad Chemistry will be out in 2000; My Sister's Keeper will also be out in 2000.

It's a very good read.

After holding the chair of her school's history department for a year, Professor Gillian Adams plans to take a sabbatical. She wants to spend time in London with her significant other Edward. However during a break, Gillian returns home to assist her mother who recently broke her hip. Gillian is shocked at how fragile her mother has become. Because of a weak heart, Gillian figures her mother has little time left. She changes her plan to spend time in Upstate New York with her mother. Gillian accepts a teaching job at nearby Stanton College.

However, the serene upper Hudson turns deadly when two students find the corpse of a peer, Nicole Bishop, in Dee's Pond. It initially appears that a hunting accident occurred, but soon evidence surfaces that someone deliberately murdered Nicole. The police find a semi-nude picture of the victim inside the home of the town's weirdo. Witnesses place the eccentric individual at the crime scene. In spite of the mounting proof, Gillian feels the prime suspect is innocent because she knows him quite well. However, as Gillian investigates, the police arrest someone else, who Gillian also thinks is innocent.

OLD WOUNDS is a slow moving, pondering academic mystery that challenges readers with each twist and turn. Action is not a by-word associated with this tale. The story line allows the delightful characters to show their true disposition and motives that dictate much of their behavior. Reminiscent of Joanne Dobson's style of writing, Nora Kelly has provided fans of academic cozies with a pleasant novel.

While I initially found this story entertaining, I have to argue that it really isn't a mystery at all. It's more of an illustration of the feminist politics of the characters. In other words, the killer is exactly who you expect it to be. I kept waiting for an entertaining twist and there was none. And even as a feminist, I found myself unable to swallow all the pronouncements of certain characters.

Don't read this for the mystery. Read it, if at all, for the politics. They are the real reason for this novel's existence. And don't say you weren't warned.

Nora Kelly is a native Easterner who is now living in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she teaches part time. She has been involved in writing her Gillian Adams mysteries for several years, and has won the 1999 Arthus Ellis Best Novel Award awarded by the Canadian Crime Writers Association.

Using a University as a backdrop, where old buildings reek of sinister motives; strange chemicals are used in obscure experiments; and cutthroat individualists fight over diminishing federal and private grant funds is a recipe for intrigue and mayhem. Gillian Adams is a department head of the History Department at the University of the Pacific Northwest. Her boyfriend, Edward Gisborne, is a Deputy Chief Inspector for Scotland Yard. Both have demanding jobs and have let their relationship wind around their crushing schedules. Gillian is in Cambridge, England on Sabbatical, thinking about her next career move, when the murder of Wendy Fowler, a research fellow strikes uncomfortably close. Gillian's friends are involved in a nonprofit organization called the Pregnancy Information Service where Wendy volunteered. It is up to Gillian and Edward to sort out the murderer's motives, and to tie the murderer in with the PIS office:

" So you think he might have burgled the PIS office?' Irene said. To steal the cards? That's silly. What good would it do?' Maybe he wanted to see what we said about other doctors. Maybe he thought he could sue if he had the evidence.' No. But he might have taken the book. Who else would? He probably thought the information he wanted was in it. Or something else he could use against us. And then he took the money so we'd think it was an ordinary burglary."

Not only does Kelly create a labyrinth of clues; her characterizations have the reader seriously considering almost every character she introduces as a suspect. Her particular form of feminism is well articulated through the characters, and their relationships strike a chord in the reader. Wendy Fowler is pregnant, and when a second body turns up that is connected to the PIS, Gillian and Edward take the reader through a well constructed plot that keeps the pages turning.

Bad Chemistry is great fun and is a cozy that will be embraced by the mystery reading world.

Shelley Glodowski, Reviewer

In the reprint of her first novel, In the Shadow of Kings, Nora Kelly offers some curious, almost apologetic prefatory remarks about her protagonist, history professor Gillian Adams. That novel was rough, though admirable in its efforts. This work demonstrates what that preface hinted at: Nora Kelly has learned a lot about writing mysteries.

This time Gillian Adams is back home, chairing the history department at fictional University of the Pacific Northwest in Vancouver. Grassroots efforts to start a women's studies program at the university result in misogynistic reactions in the form of pranks and protests. When the student leader of the feminist movement on campus is murdered, Gillian must confront the possibility that a student, or worse, even one of her colleagues, may be responsible.

This novel is polished and competent, with the same fluid style of Kelly's earlier work, but with a more richly developed characterization of Gillian. If the competence of this work portends a trend, I look forward to reading more of Nora Kelly's work.

Joining the ranks of Michael Innes, Amanda Cross, and many, many other writers of academic murder mysteries, Nora Kelly offers this first look at historian and unwitting sleuth, Gillian Adams, who returns to her alma mater of Cambridge while on sabbatical from her position at the University of the Pacific Northwest in Vancouver (She is half Canadian, half American.). The title _In The Shadow of Kings_ is ambiguous: it refers first of all to the literal shadows of King's College, where the much esteemed but little adored historian Alistair Greenwood is murdered, awkwardly and publicly, at Gillian's guest lecture. Gillian assists her boyfriend, a Scotland Yard detective, in solving the murder, while she simultaneously confronts her ambivalent feelings toward the relationship and fears that her old college chums may be implicated.

First of all, the strength of the novel is in Kelly's style. She writes beautifully, almost poetically, as she lovingly describes the hallowed halls of Cambridge through the eyes of one who returns after a long absence. The dialogue is natural and yet full of subtexts. And she knows when to use humor (a must in academic mysteries, I think) and when to pull the plug on Gillian's sentimental journeys.

Unfortunately, Kelly does not lavish the same attention to her plot, an unforgivable lapse in a mystery. The novel's solution is unsatisfactory, even disappointing, and the motives of one character (the colorful Fiona Clay) are never really explained. Moreover, the old ploy of pairing up the amateur sleuth romantically with a cop is handled badly here, with too much of Edward without Gillian. The reader starts to wonder who, after all, is the protagonist.

The most interesting theme in _In the Shadow of Kings_ is that history is both alluring and an embarrassment. This idea aligns nicely with Gillian's real (however tiresome) struggles with career and personal life, with modernism and tradition.