Amazon.com
Murder most archeological. While searching for artifacts in the aptly named Bloodworth House, Professor Simon Shaw--young, gifted, and Pulitzered--comes upon a less-than-colonial corpse. Could she be the long-missing heroine Anne Bloodworth and can Professor Shaw sort things out and give his students their money's worth? Fans of gentle mystery and Southern civility should opt for Simon Said.
From Booklist
Shaber won the St. Martin's Malice Domestic Contest for Best First Traditional Mystery Novel with this academic cozy, whose central character is a historian and whose central crime, fittingly, lies in the past. At Kenan College in Raleigh, North Carolina, excavations at Bloodworth House unearth a surprise: the corpse of a woman murdered 70 years previously. The police turn to history professor Simon Shaw, an expert on Bloodworth House, to help solve the ancient crime. But while investigating the past, Simon finds himself the target of a quite contemporary murderer, who might be linked to the case or who just might be a rivalrous colleague. Shaber plays nicely on the parallels between historians and detectives, though as mystery puzzles go, neither the old nor the new here poses much of a challenge. A low-key mystery, this is a personable book, with a likable, vulnerable protagonist, an abundance of wry humor, and a strong atmosphere of small-town life in the South. Gail Pool
