Blue Blood

Ivy League #2

by Pamela Thomas-Graham

Harvard professor Nikki Chase comforts the husband of a murdered academic, but when he becomes the prime suspect, Nikki has to put on her detective hat to uncover the deadly secrets of the true killer.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, African American

320 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Pamela Thomas-Graham is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard College and a graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. Now president and CEO of CNBC Television, she divides her time between Westchester County and Manhattan.

Reviews

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is entertaining but a little thin/fast/easy. Professor Chase basically just trips over or wanders into or stumbles upon all the information she needs one way or another. There’s also a lot less character development or growth in this second entry of the series. But, it’s fun enough seeing Chase being tenacious while watching where the case goes.

[Rose]

Reading this felt a bit like being hit over the head, personally.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

Please see my earlier review of Book 1 in the "Ivy League" series... I think I enjoyed this "cozy" more because I was a tourist in New Haven while my daughter attended an educator's conference at the Yale Center for British Art. If you visit the museum, you'll see a large painting dating from 1708. In it, Elihu Yale, the founder of Yale, is sitting around with some other rich white people. Far to the right is a young African child who's been forced to wear a padlocked metal collar around his neck. Yes, Yale was a proud slave-owner.

While "Blue Blood" touches on the poverty of the Black community surrounding Yale, it would have been good to inform readers that one of the reasons the community is so poor is that Yale - because it's an "educational" institution - pays no taxes. Yes, the poor people in town are paying for the services super-rich Yale gets for free. This is the real crime being committed by present day Yale. Just like the crime of slavery, upon which Yale and many US institutions were founded, it's been disappeared. That, in fact, is the main function of the upper class intelligentsia produced by the Ivy League - to keep the 99% in a deep historical sleep.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the fast-paced story and the African-American heroine (same one as in author's first mystery). Occasionally some plot points seemed contrived.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite of the three, but still fun.

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as fascinating as the first one!! Love this series.

[Roberta · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the second in the author's ivy league series but the first that I read because I picked it up at a library sale thinking that it would interest me because I spent pretty much my whole career on college campuses. It is adequate as a murder mystery but the story depends a little too much on the cliche of old professors diddling nubile co-eds.

I started getting annoyed early in the book by the author's obvious antipathy towards New Haven, Connecticut, beyond what was required to set up the story. Aside from the crime and racism the weather sucked and the stunningly beautiful campus and buildings of Yale were described as looking more like a Nazi prison camp. The author was running out of synonyms for dark and brooding.

Then the author made an out-of-left-field pot shot at a specific tiny town in upstate New York. I can only assume that the author had a personal ax to grind since she not only named the place but gave us directions so we'll know how to get there though its location had nothing to do with the story. If you do decide to go, it's not all that far to Sharon Springs where you can visit the Fabulous Beekman Boys and pick up an autographed copy of The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir or I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir.

BTW, that teepee the author was mocking just got listed on the National Register of Historic Places so show some respect.

[Denrique · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thomas-Graham is just brilliant! Any author who can send me in a dictionary as often as she does is simply academically brilliant. But, moreover, the way she crafts her tale is so engaging, you just can't put her books down (at least, I couldn't)!

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

It brought back nostalgic memories of my years in New Haven.

[Jesse Rhines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good novel about an African American Harvard Grad sleuthing a murder mystery at Yale.