Murdering Americans: A Robert Amiss/Baronness Jack Troutback Mystery

Ruth Dudley Edwards' MURDERING AMERICANS tells of one Baroness Troutbeck, who leaps at the opportunity to become a visiting dignitary on an American campus, only to find murder and danger abroad. Lively plots and different, strong characterization make these involving, inviting recommendations for any public library with a strong mystery section.

Leave it to Ruth Dudley Edwards to zing Americans in oh so funny a way. She's skewered pompous people all over England in her previous books but her take on America, and Indiana and academia, in particular (I was born in Indiana and spent a lifetime in academia)left me laughing and with a strong desire to smack some sense into people I have known. But that's best left to another book...Eleanor Sullivan, author of Assumed DeadAssumed Dead

I've always enjoyed Dudley Edwards' mystery novels with Robert Amiss, but since she introduced Jack Troutbeck a few books ago, the stories have really taken off. I adore Lady Troutbeck's non-PC vision of the world, which was particularily on show in both Carnage on the Committee, Publish and be Murdered, and, now, Murdering Americans. I don't think Murdering Americans is as tightly written as her previous books. But as an avid reader of "series" books, I find it wonderful to meet old friends in new print. And, I loved Jack's description of America and our place in the world, as written in pages 205 to 208, in response to questioning from young Betsy. It was as beautiful an "explanation" of the US as I've seen written anywhere. I'm also waiting for the Bookontape version of Murdering Americans. If you're reading this, Ruth, will you let us know on your website when the CD will be released and if Bill Walls is doing the reading? He's a wiz.

Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (2/07) "Murdering Americans" is another book in a series of adventures for Baroness Jack Troutbeck. In this one, the Baroness takes a break from being Mistress of St. Martha's College, with her feisty parrot Horace, to be a Distinguished Visiting Professor (DVP) at a college in Indiana. When she gets to the college she discovers that some of her not-so-favorite people are also DVP's there. She also realizes that she cannot stand mid-western American cuisine and that the liberal American world of academia is not for her. She speaks out about this. Actually, the Baroness' thoughts on how overboard our society has become with political correctness are quite valid and enjoyable to read. There is a faction of students on campus, who are fed up with the administrators and the way that the college is being handled. The Baroness learns about what is happening and becomes very outspoken with her thoughts. She also discovers that it appears that a former administrator was actually murdered prior to her arrival. When other administrators are killed, the tension heats up on campus. The Baroness has to convince her sidekick, Robert Amiss, to leave his European honeymoon and come to her aide. "Murdering Americans" is a fun book to read. The characters are well-developed and most of them would truly be referred to as "Characters." In spite of the humor, the plot is also suspenseful. This is the first book that I have read in this series. You can read it, without having had to read the other ones first. However, I enjoyed it so much, I plan on going back to read the other ones in the series.

The Mistress of St. Martha's College in Cambridge, England, Professor Baroness "Jack" Troutbeck accepts an invitation to become a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Freeman State University in New Paddington, Indiana. Leaving behind the House of Lords, Jack, accompanied only by her loquacious (some might say loud mouth - just not in front of Jack) right wing spouting Horace the parrot, expects hotbeds of philosophical debate as seen by 1950s classic movies. Instead Jack is appalled by what she finds in Indiana; and not just the prison food and chlorine water. The campus is owned by the liberal leaning politically correct police called Freeman State University academia who dumb down debate and threaten the essence of civilization dating back to Ancient Athens as no group has ever challenged it before. Ready to wrestle these miscreants into submission, the outraged outrageous right winger begins to make quiet inquiries into the death of the Provost Helen Fortier Pritchardson even as the Baroness struggles with the Americanization of thought starting with Randy the waiter and ending with an amalgam of anti alliterations. Ruth Dudley Edwards provides a take no prisoner satire that rips into the phoniness of political correctness and the perhaps even more phony anti-political correctness by the use of hyperbole and character comparisons. The whodunit is cleverly designed to support the Baroness' foray into life in the proper American Midwest. Lampooning liberals and stinging anti-liberals, Ms. Edwards writes an amusing tale in which the assimilated Americans don't know Jack even after the third war with the Brits ends. Harriet Klausner