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Dell Chandler Mysteries #1
Blunt Instrument
A failed professor solves a murder on campus in this new whodunit from bestselling author Amy Bloom.
The case of the bludgeoned lecturer has all of Cromwell University reeling, even though the elderly Professor Bullfinch wasn’t particularly well-liked. His ornery nature and Old World approach to campus politics ruffled more than a few feathers over the years, and present tensions within his department mean there are more suspects than mourners in the wake of his death. And the murder weapon—a bronze bust of Nathaniel Hawthorne—does seem to indicate that the attack may have been academically motivated…
Enter Dell Chandler, the failed English professor turned self-taught private detective whom Dr. Cutty calls in to investigate the crime. She has the background to tease out the motives among the staff and just enough experience to conduct a thorough inquiry. If she solves the case before the cops do, the university could keep the whole thing quiet, avoiding sensational media about the dark side of campus life. But to do so, she’ll have to dodge her own demons from her past life as a disgraced academic.
Written with the same depth of character and insight that readers have come to expect from author Amy Bloom’s novels and memoirs, Blunt Instrument is an engaging and entertaining mystery with a clever, complex protagonist at its core.
The case of the bludgeoned lecturer has all of Cromwell University reeling, even though the elderly Professor Bullfinch wasn’t particularly well-liked. His ornery nature and Old World approach to campus politics ruffled more than a few feathers over the years, and present tensions within his department mean there are more suspects than mourners in the wake of his death. And the murder weapon—a bronze bust of Nathaniel Hawthorne—does seem to indicate that the attack may have been academically motivated…
Enter Dell Chandler, the failed English professor turned self-taught private detective whom Dr. Cutty calls in to investigate the crime. She has the background to tease out the motives among the staff and just enough experience to conduct a thorough inquiry. If she solves the case before the cops do, the university could keep the whole thing quiet, avoiding sensational media about the dark side of campus life. But to do so, she’ll have to dodge her own demons from her past life as a disgraced academic.
Written with the same depth of character and insight that readers have come to expect from author Amy Bloom’s novels and memoirs, Blunt Instrument is an engaging and entertaining mystery with a clever, complex protagonist at its core.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 2, 2026
About the author
Amy Bloom
73 books1,341 followersAmy Bloom is the New York Times bestselling author of White Houses; Come to Me, a National Book Award finalist; A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; Love Invents Us; Normal; Away; Where the God of Love Hangs Out; and Lucky Us. Her stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Short Stories, The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction, and many other anthologies. She has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, O: The Oprah Magazine, Slate, Tin House, and Salon, among other publications, and has won a National Magazine Award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 304 reviews
July 15, 2026
3.5 stars
I have eagerly read and appreciated Amy Bloom’s literary fiction and her remarkable memoir of her time with her mother in her final years, so I thought this was a bit of a departure for her. It’s the first in a planned PI series featuring the damaged Dell Chandler. But if John Banville/Benjamin Black can make it work, why not? This mystery involves a murder set in academia, in which an unpopular university professor is bludgeoned to death by a bust of Nathaniel Hawthorn. The college president hires failed academic Dell, who has the right background to ask questions of the faculty and get answers the police might miss. There are more red herrings than you can shake a fishing pole at, and the author has taken care to seed Dell’s background with enough quirks and complications to make for a complex, enjoyable ongoing character. I will definitely read the next one!
I have eagerly read and appreciated Amy Bloom’s literary fiction and her remarkable memoir of her time with her mother in her final years, so I thought this was a bit of a departure for her. It’s the first in a planned PI series featuring the damaged Dell Chandler. But if John Banville/Benjamin Black can make it work, why not? This mystery involves a murder set in academia, in which an unpopular university professor is bludgeoned to death by a bust of Nathaniel Hawthorn. The college president hires failed academic Dell, who has the right background to ask questions of the faculty and get answers the police might miss. There are more red herrings than you can shake a fishing pole at, and the author has taken care to seed Dell’s background with enough quirks and complications to make for a complex, enjoyable ongoing character. I will definitely read the next one!
June 12, 2026
Not the worst thing I've ever read, but I would never recommend this to anyone. Plot was all over the place
July 13, 2026
[4]
“The man’s nearly eighty. He said that he’s just an old-fashioned scholar, which means he thinks everything after 1780 is just trendy garbage...But you know, eighty.”
I’ve read three of Bloom’s literary fiction, and was interested in this departure into crime novel. I’ve had good luck with John Banville’s Benjamin Black novels, and Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace. Colson Whitehead has a crime trilogy I intend to delve into soon. Yeah, it’s a thing, and a good thing it is for Amy Bloom. I hope Blunt Instrument is the first of more. This was a delicious crime feast written with lean, sinewy prose, snappy and insouciant dialogue (but not so snappy and insouciant that it creates a flippant narrative), and a wry tone. A collection of dysfunctional found family brainiac characters, from academia, police, and other motley characters tangle, untangle, weave, dangle, and compete for love, money, power. Amy Bloom hit this out of the park!
I suspect haters will be haters because it doesn’t tie up in a bow. If you need clean and sanitized threads, skip this one. In fact, it required me to work some things out on my own. Ambiguity, for me, actually boosted this appeal, and blurs the line between genre and a cut above. Pacey plot and a plucky, damaged detective add some earned depth of character. We don’t know everything about Dell Chandler, PhD of English literature, and former professor at Cromwell University. Why was she disgraced and suspended? Now she’s back—but as a PI to solve the murder of a septuagenarian professor, Oliver Bullfinch, who was killed by a blunt instrument—a bust of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He was a polarizing figure in the department with a lot of power.
Each short chapter begins with a title of a song—a lot of Otis Redding in there. I do like that hook she used, as it isn’t gimmicky, it’s just kinda cool. You can read this in one or two or three short or longer sittings, and I appreciated the challenges to work out some answers myself. It’s accessible and droll, and I cared a lot about Dell, a big-boned Millennial. There’s some romance in the book, too—there’s love, lust (but not graphic or icky), and a louche character or two. If there’s a follow-up book or a series, I’ll be first in line, and I’m über picky about series.
Not exactly noir, but cleverly noir adjacent.
“The man’s nearly eighty. He said that he’s just an old-fashioned scholar, which means he thinks everything after 1780 is just trendy garbage...But you know, eighty.”
I’ve read three of Bloom’s literary fiction, and was interested in this departure into crime novel. I’ve had good luck with John Banville’s Benjamin Black novels, and Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace. Colson Whitehead has a crime trilogy I intend to delve into soon. Yeah, it’s a thing, and a good thing it is for Amy Bloom. I hope Blunt Instrument is the first of more. This was a delicious crime feast written with lean, sinewy prose, snappy and insouciant dialogue (but not so snappy and insouciant that it creates a flippant narrative), and a wry tone. A collection of dysfunctional found family brainiac characters, from academia, police, and other motley characters tangle, untangle, weave, dangle, and compete for love, money, power. Amy Bloom hit this out of the park!
I suspect haters will be haters because it doesn’t tie up in a bow. If you need clean and sanitized threads, skip this one. In fact, it required me to work some things out on my own. Ambiguity, for me, actually boosted this appeal, and blurs the line between genre and a cut above. Pacey plot and a plucky, damaged detective add some earned depth of character. We don’t know everything about Dell Chandler, PhD of English literature, and former professor at Cromwell University. Why was she disgraced and suspended? Now she’s back—but as a PI to solve the murder of a septuagenarian professor, Oliver Bullfinch, who was killed by a blunt instrument—a bust of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He was a polarizing figure in the department with a lot of power.
Each short chapter begins with a title of a song—a lot of Otis Redding in there. I do like that hook she used, as it isn’t gimmicky, it’s just kinda cool. You can read this in one or two or three short or longer sittings, and I appreciated the challenges to work out some answers myself. It’s accessible and droll, and I cared a lot about Dell, a big-boned Millennial. There’s some romance in the book, too—there’s love, lust (but not graphic or icky), and a louche character or two. If there’s a follow-up book or a series, I’ll be first in line, and I’m über picky about series.
Not exactly noir, but cleverly noir adjacent.
Read
February 20, 2026Failed college professor Dell Chandler inherits a profession as a private detective, at which she is severely impeded by "anger management issues, impulse control issues, and apparently unresolvable issues with authority." Also, there's the matter of her general laziness and carelessness, an unfortunate habit of "breathing like a locomotive" when stressed, equal-opportunity lust for men and women, and her predilection for enjoying other people parading their flaws. Her training for PI work? An addiction to watching Law & Order. She is hired to solve the murder of an unlikable professor named Bulfinch.
Like her "regular novels," this mystery has Amy Bloom's sumptuous descriptions—clothes, food, room décor, and people—and off-the-wall sense of humor. But it's hard to describe the style of this book. The action comes with a starkness that reminds me of noir books. There are abrupt transitions: Dell meets a guy and next scene with him, they're having sex. The scenes are kind of pasted together. My sense is that Bloom has re-invented the mystery, using Law & Order's sometimes cut-and-pasted scenes, connected by the famous 2-note musical transition. The characters don't really develop, but I didn't mind. As with Law & Order (I watch it too), I was entertained and the great literary descriptions were like seasoning in a good stew where it didn't matter if you knew what was in it.
Like her "regular novels," this mystery has Amy Bloom's sumptuous descriptions—clothes, food, room décor, and people—and off-the-wall sense of humor. But it's hard to describe the style of this book. The action comes with a starkness that reminds me of noir books. There are abrupt transitions: Dell meets a guy and next scene with him, they're having sex. The scenes are kind of pasted together. My sense is that Bloom has re-invented the mystery, using Law & Order's sometimes cut-and-pasted scenes, connected by the famous 2-note musical transition. The characters don't really develop, but I didn't mind. As with Law & Order (I watch it too), I was entertained and the great literary descriptions were like seasoning in a good stew where it didn't matter if you knew what was in it.
June 18, 2026
I have liked every Amy Bloom book I’ve read until this one. Dumb plot line with poorly drawn characters.
Did Not Finish
June 26, 2026I didn't get very far into this book. Had no sympathy for the main character and was annoyed by a random sex scene and emphasis on sex in general. Bloom's idea of adult literature?
July 8, 2026
Like a Sue Grafton or Janet Evanovich novel only shitty.
August 5, 2026
I’ll give the book a couple of stars since I clipped through it pretty quickly, but it just wasn’t very good. I was excited about the book when I first heard about it—I tend to enjoy murder mysteries and love university novels, so a murder mystery at a high-end Northeastern university seemed right up my alley. But in the end, it was a disappointment. The writing was sloppy and trite—imagine a bunch of English Lit PhDs talking like teenagers, without anything approaching intelligence or wit. (Maybe this is just me, but I certainly found it curious that in a book consisting of characters who love literature, not a single character is ever, at any time, reading.) There were also strange inconsistencies from page to page. And the story was neither creative nor clever. The plot meandered about, with clues seeming to fall conveniently into the protagonist’s lap as she ambled about like an idiot. The solution to one murder is only roughly fleshed out (with the police and almost everyone else seeming to lose interest by the end of the book), while another is very thin and contrived. Plus a couple other mysteries that pop up are never resolved.*
*But while some of these critical plot points are left to the reader’s musings, the author makes sure to spend an agonizing amount of time describing, in multiple paragraphs’ worth of detail, the facial features, hair, body style, and clothing of every person in the book (on each separate day we encounter them). Some level of description is certainly necessary, but this strikes me as ludicrously over the top. Perhaps this is what some readers want? Ultimately, it may be that I simply was not the intended audience for this kind of novel and this kind of writing.
*But while some of these critical plot points are left to the reader’s musings, the author makes sure to spend an agonizing amount of time describing, in multiple paragraphs’ worth of detail, the facial features, hair, body style, and clothing of every person in the book (on each separate day we encounter them). Some level of description is certainly necessary, but this strikes me as ludicrously over the top. Perhaps this is what some readers want? Ultimately, it may be that I simply was not the intended audience for this kind of novel and this kind of writing.
June 11, 2026
This was almost a four star for me because I listened to it and narrator Hillary Huber has exactly the right kind of smoky almost snarky voice that made Dell seem real. Reading it might have been a DNF, though. Too many plot threads, characters that could/would/should be suspects and lack of clarity about the main character herself, although if anyone can solve a murder based on experience watching TV procedurals, Dell is that person.
I've really appreciated Amy's other character-driven books so maybe the next in this series will address those glitches.
I've really appreciated Amy's other character-driven books so maybe the next in this series will address those glitches.
August 17, 2026
I love Amy Bloom’s literary fiction, but this was seriously bad.
July 13, 2026
I don’t gravitate to mysteries, but this one had an academic setting, which called to me. A senior English professor, the sort inclined to blackball younger colleagues in tenure votes, has been found bludgeoned in his office, and the police are getting nowhere slowly. The college president calls in a private investigator, Dell Chandler, to move things along. Dell is herself a former assistant professor, one denied tenure at the same time she inherited a private eye agency. At first, prospects seem none too promising — Dell is the sort whose techniques tend to be things she’s seen on Law & Order -- but she’s no shrinking violet, and she’s soon attracting or repulsing likely suspects right and left. The department Lothario tries to bed her (and then, maybe, kill her) and one of the cops falls in love with her. She’s snarky with her elders (which is fun) and nice to people like little old ladies and cleaning staff (which is important). Ultimately, the plot upends expectations with one or two major twists, which it would be wrong to say more about, but the real star here is Dell herself, providing a running commentary on the set-up and the take-down that deposits a gem on almost every page, like when she notes how a faculty member says the word “administration”: “the way my father said ‘internet,’ with a sort of envious loathing.”
July 22, 2026
I did not finish this book. Writing made no sense, and I could not follow the plot. Intriguing jacket, setup, and main character, but complete execution failure. I kept reading sentences that made no sense and trying to go back to re-read and find what I missed or misread . . . Only to find I missed nothing, and the sentence simply made no sense. After experiencing this 5 times in the first 50 pages, I gave up and picked up a different book.
September 10, 2026
Quick, moderately entertaining reading. The detective is not all that interesting. Ditto for the plot. Won't read more books in this series.
August 17, 2026
The plot was good but the writing doesn't make sense half the time. It seems like we're supposed to understand from little snippets of dialogue deeper meeting that is not implied. I don't understand how an editor let this get published.
July 1, 2026
Spoiler warning!: If you enjoy detective mysteries where the detective is a mercurial inconsistent mess, the setting is a small New England town with a big unreliable police force and residents seem normal but aren't, the central mystery is never solved, the detective thinks she knows who committed the murder she was hired to solve but can't convince anyone else (including this reader), you don't mind if one of the people suspected of murder is himself murdered for unrelated reasons (our detective does catch this murderer), you don't mind that other totally unrelated events pop up (the detective discovers her father isn't really her father!?), and events like brake lines being cut and rocks thrown through windows are never explained -- then this might be the book for you!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 9, 2026
This was the worst book I’ve read all year, and that’s coming from someone who has read more than one thing that Freida McFadden barfed out. Very few of the mysteries in this absolute mess were solved- including the main one- which seems to be, like, the bare minimum in a detective novel. I illegally downloaded this book and still feel ripped off.
July 16, 2026
This is a truly terrible book
This is a bizarre book to have been written by an accomplished author. A totally unbelievable (and difficult to follow) plot, dialogue modeled on noir thrillers but without their integrity and cliche protagonists. I have no interest in following the future adventures of Dell Chandler.
This is a bizarre book to have been written by an accomplished author. A totally unbelievable (and difficult to follow) plot, dialogue modeled on noir thrillers but without their integrity and cliche protagonists. I have no interest in following the future adventures of Dell Chandler.
July 19, 2026
This plot was a hot mess and I feel like I was the one bludgeoned with a blunt instrument.
October 1, 2026
This one started out giving me the feeling it might be a great new PI series like the Kinsey Millhone series by Sue Grafton. The writing was tight and funny until it all fell apart 3/4 of the way through.
August 20, 2026
Sad to say the snappy heroine annoyed me immensely and by the end I couldn’t have cared less who killed Professor Bullfinch and I’m not entirely sure who did!
June 27, 2026
I would have quit reading except I had nothing else handy. I didn't like the main character, nor did I like any of the others. I also couldn't follow the main character's thought processes at all, and I didn't understand what evidence she had that identified the killer. Total waste of time.
July 5, 2026
I love an academic mystery, and I was looking forward to this one. Without giving too much away, I also like my mysteries when the bad guys get caught, and this was not that kind of mystery. On the other hand, I learned what stunad means.
July 19, 2026
I’ve been an Amy Bloom fan for a long time and really enjoyed her take on this genre. It was engaging from the start, poignant, and quite funny. One of my favorite lines came after Dell had an accident and was looking at the effects on her face:
“I’d thought vanity wasn’t one of my sins (pride and smart-assery, is what I thought) and now I knew better.”
Just a delight - I’ll make it a higher priority to catch up on her back catalog now.
“I’d thought vanity wasn’t one of my sins (pride and smart-assery, is what I thought) and now I knew better.”
Just a delight - I’ll make it a higher priority to catch up on her back catalog now.
July 7, 2026
This was a fun, entertaining mystery novel - perfect for a beach or vacation read. The protagonist is a former college professor who apparently had some type of meltdown and she left academia to become a private detective. She's smart, funny, and has a clever sense of humor, so she's a main character you can root for. The novel includes a well rounded cast of secondary characters and an interesting, if somewhat unbelievable, storyline with a few good plot twists thrown in for good measure. It seems like this novel may be setting the scene for a series featuring the main character, which could be interesting. I did feel like ther were a few loose ends here and sometimes the pacing lagged a bit for me. I also thought some of the underlying themes were only developed superficially and the ending seemed a bit abrupt, but I'm interested enough in the premise here and the characters to read a second book should this result in a mystery series.
July 7, 2026
It's like there are chunks missing from the novel. Allusions to an interesting backstory for thr main character that just aren't fleshed out in any way, a motive for a murder that had me wondering if my copy was missing pages, people falling in love within two meetings, and a completely abrupt ending that wraps nothing up at all.
September 7, 2026
I was excited to read this book, because it was a mix of crime and academia, and a series to boot. That said, I was really underwhelmed with this book. The main character has a PhD, but prides herself on learning how to be a PI based on “Law and Order”? Come on. If you were actually a PhD you’d probably do some sort of realistic job preparation. Other than that, there were a lot of holes in the plot. Dell has a fling with the male cop and somehow decides she loves him and he decides he loves her. Definitely no build up or explanation to that. The other professor suspects are super weird, and the line by the one handsome professor that he wants to have sex with Dell but first lie down together a few times? Weird. For no apparent reason, one of the other characters has a fling with handsome professor but then somehow also she gets married to someone else? Why? There was also a side plot about Dell’s backstory which didn’t really contribute to the overall plot. I had heard the ending was abrupt, and it is. I truly do not care about these characters and I will not be reading any subsequent books.
I felt like I was taking crazy pills when I read all of the good reviews about this book.
I felt like I was taking crazy pills when I read all of the good reviews about this book.
September 18, 2026
I do not understand the praise for this book, and it’s my first time reading this author. I read that this first in a series of detective mysteries was a departure for her, so maybe she just doesn’t know what she’s doing yet.
I love mysteries and have read hundreds. This author doesn’t seem to get the idea. She writes these conversations and then her narrator makes conclusions that don’t give with the convo. I feel all the time like I don’t understand what she’s getting at.
And the ending needed to be at least another chapter. It happened ridiculously fast, like she was in a hurry to finish the book. I just didn’t get whatever it was she was getting at.
I love mysteries and have read hundreds. This author doesn’t seem to get the idea. She writes these conversations and then her narrator makes conclusions that don’t give with the convo. I feel all the time like I don’t understand what she’s getting at.
And the ending needed to be at least another chapter. It happened ridiculously fast, like she was in a hurry to finish the book. I just didn’t get whatever it was she was getting at.
September 12, 2026
Did AI write this? So incongruent. The characters were utterly flat and their relationships with one another all hinged around s*x in the most banal way possible — s*x if robots wrote it, copying human cliches. Apparently this is the first book in what will be a series. But I won’t be spending any more hours of my life with Del what’s-her-face. (Main characters in murder mystery series are supposed to be memorable!!)
*rant concluded*
*rant concluded*
Read
July 23, 2026Shrug
August 23, 2026
Not great.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 304 reviews