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Dell Chandler Mysteries #1
Blunt Instrument
A failed professor solves a murder on campus in this new whodunit from the bestselling author of I’ll Be Right Here.
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 Nathanial 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 lovable 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 Nathanial 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 lovable protagonist at its core.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 2, 2026
About the author
Amy Bloom
73 books1,318 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 200 reviews
July 21, 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!
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 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 8, 2026
Like a Sue Grafton or Janet Evanovich novel only shitty.
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?
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.
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.”
June 18, 2026
I have liked every Amy Bloom book I’ve read until this one. Dumb plot line with poorly drawn characters.
August 17, 2026
I love Amy Bloom’s literary fiction, but this was seriously bad.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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 14, 2026
DNF . Longing for the Amy Bloom writing I first encountered in Come To Me.
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.
Read
July 23, 2026Shrug
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!
August 23, 2026
Not great.
August 21, 2026
What the hell was that?
July 19, 2026
This plot was a hot mess and I feel like I was the one bludgeoned with a blunt instrument.
July 19, 2026
Delicious. Author Amy Bloom is a friend, so of course, we read all her books. But this is a spectacular debut in an entirely new direction for this polymath writer - her first effort at a murder mystery.
Wisely, she has set it in a world she knows intimately, small-town academia. The faculty at fictional Cromwell College are surely drop-dead simulacra of the author's colleagues at Wesleyan, where she has long taught. And drop dead they do!
Dell Chandler, a failed academic, is now a private investigator for hire. When the president of Cromwell asks her to visit, there can only be one reason. Charles Bullfinch, widely despised, has been brutally murdered. President Elizabeth Cuttty wants it swept under the rug as soon as possible.
Amy Bloom draws her characters with a dagger. Everyone has secrets, motives, and reasons to kill.
Just an added fillip. Every (brief) chapter is named for some popular song.
A fun, fast read. I know that Amy has a three-book deal. I only hope that the others will feature Dell, a smart, sassy broad with a razor-sharp mind and a weakness for a fetching face, male or female.
I raced through this. Have fun.
Wisely, she has set it in a world she knows intimately, small-town academia. The faculty at fictional Cromwell College are surely drop-dead simulacra of the author's colleagues at Wesleyan, where she has long taught. And drop dead they do!
Dell Chandler, a failed academic, is now a private investigator for hire. When the president of Cromwell asks her to visit, there can only be one reason. Charles Bullfinch, widely despised, has been brutally murdered. President Elizabeth Cuttty wants it swept under the rug as soon as possible.
Amy Bloom draws her characters with a dagger. Everyone has secrets, motives, and reasons to kill.
Just an added fillip. Every (brief) chapter is named for some popular song.
A fun, fast read. I know that Amy has a three-book deal. I only hope that the others will feature Dell, a smart, sassy broad with a razor-sharp mind and a weakness for a fetching face, male or female.
I raced through this. Have fun.
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.
July 17, 2026
3.5 rounded up. I'm not sure what to make of this book. I found the protagonist, Dell, to be funny in a smartly snarky way. She's a PI who makes it up as she goes along. The plot, however, was so different than any other mystery I've read that I couldn't get a handle on it. Still, I'm glad I read it.
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.
June 10, 2026
Blunt Instrument was almost okay.
In Amy Bloom's newest novel, Dell Chandler is a failed academic turned private investigator, asked to solve the murder of a bludgeoned-to-death professor. I describe the novel as almost okay because it is teeming with promise, but the execution of these promises is nearly absent. The setting is underdeveloped and underwhelming, the characters are static and forgettable, and the conclusion (despite being the most delicious part of a murder mystery) left me hungry for an actual end. There are spoilers past this part, but if you are a hopeful reader of this novel this intro is all you need to know.
The novel advertises itself as a dark academic murder mystery, so, naturally, a reader would expect a rich and alluring backdrop of Gothic architecture, brooding willows, and prophetic stained glass. Instead, I found myself lost between two cities, neither of which Bloom could clearly define. There were vivid descriptions of places that did not remotely matter to the plot–a prominent flaw that extended to the characters, events, and motifs of the novel.
Bloom does a good job of introducing characters through her imagery, but the novel almost immediately forgets about them. We are given an abundance of plot-important dinner parties, with characters that disappear as quickly as they came. We get a three-page description of Elizabeth Cutter, the school president, and then don't hear about her again until she hands Dell her check. Halfway through the novel, Bloom abandons any mention of Bullfinch, whose murder Dell is originally assigned to solve. The character development is also missing, which is probably why these avatars dissipate. Dell frequently mentions making her mother proud and changing her ways, but the reader never gets enough background on Dell to confirm this. Her failed academic origins are briefly mentioned in the first chapter and then never reflected upon again. Her bad habits are sprinkled throughout, but never consistent; Dell is a hopeless romantic, a stone-cold man-eater, a bad communicator, and yet a good liar. Summary: Dell is all over the place, which seems like less of a character flaw and more like poor writing choices.
But the bronze bust that beats, and eventually kills this novel for me, is the inconclusive plot. The conclusion does not give the reader a clear killer, anyway to tie together the events of the novel, or even a remote understanding of the plot. We are given so much random information that ends up not mattering at all, and no details about the actual murder plots. The first half of the novel focuses on Bullfinch's murder, for which Bloom cannot choose a killer. She does not conclusively decide that it was Allison Shein, a candidate for tenure, that Bullfinch bullied. Or if it was Allison and her lover, or if it was Harry, Allison's other lover, or both of them, or all of them together. We are not told how Allison, described as a meek woman, bludgeons a man to death, except for a quick aside about her pilates-style martial arts class. Despite being given nothing about the actual murder, we are given so much about...Bullfinch's irrelevant sexual deviance? Bullfinch rapes a student, information tossed aside. Bullfinch is paying an immigrant cleaner for blowjobs–something completely irrelevant to his murder. Bullfinch has a secret son, who, just like the others, never makes it past the first page he is introduced on.
The second half of the novel introduces new murders, somehow also not connected to the first, and seemingly unexamined. The brakes on Dell's car are cut. We never find out who did it. A rock is thrown through Dell's paternal father's window and (somehow) gravely injures him–this also goes unaccounted for. There is an anonymous hit-and-run with no victim. Then, Harry, Dell's main suspect for Bullfinch's murder, is murdered, for reasons unrelated to Bullfinch's murder, but
the conclusion does not tell us who killed Harry and how. Was it Michelle, the lesbian cop whose girlfriend slept with Harry? Or Michelle's girlfriend, being blackmailed by Harry for the hit-and-run, which she may have committed? The central mystery of this novel seems to be what actually happened in it.
All that being said, there were things I enjoyed. The pace was gripping toward the end. The main character was witty; her voice shines through the pages. I truly believe Amy Bloom could've had a good novel if she hadn't gotten tired of writing and editing it. Just a bit more time, reflection, and revision could have done Bloom and Dell a great service.
In Amy Bloom's newest novel, Dell Chandler is a failed academic turned private investigator, asked to solve the murder of a bludgeoned-to-death professor. I describe the novel as almost okay because it is teeming with promise, but the execution of these promises is nearly absent. The setting is underdeveloped and underwhelming, the characters are static and forgettable, and the conclusion (despite being the most delicious part of a murder mystery) left me hungry for an actual end. There are spoilers past this part, but if you are a hopeful reader of this novel this intro is all you need to know.
The novel advertises itself as a dark academic murder mystery, so, naturally, a reader would expect a rich and alluring backdrop of Gothic architecture, brooding willows, and prophetic stained glass. Instead, I found myself lost between two cities, neither of which Bloom could clearly define. There were vivid descriptions of places that did not remotely matter to the plot–a prominent flaw that extended to the characters, events, and motifs of the novel.
Bloom does a good job of introducing characters through her imagery, but the novel almost immediately forgets about them. We are given an abundance of plot-important dinner parties, with characters that disappear as quickly as they came. We get a three-page description of Elizabeth Cutter, the school president, and then don't hear about her again until she hands Dell her check. Halfway through the novel, Bloom abandons any mention of Bullfinch, whose murder Dell is originally assigned to solve. The character development is also missing, which is probably why these avatars dissipate. Dell frequently mentions making her mother proud and changing her ways, but the reader never gets enough background on Dell to confirm this. Her failed academic origins are briefly mentioned in the first chapter and then never reflected upon again. Her bad habits are sprinkled throughout, but never consistent; Dell is a hopeless romantic, a stone-cold man-eater, a bad communicator, and yet a good liar. Summary: Dell is all over the place, which seems like less of a character flaw and more like poor writing choices.
But the bronze bust that beats, and eventually kills this novel for me, is the inconclusive plot. The conclusion does not give the reader a clear killer, anyway to tie together the events of the novel, or even a remote understanding of the plot. We are given so much random information that ends up not mattering at all, and no details about the actual murder plots. The first half of the novel focuses on Bullfinch's murder, for which Bloom cannot choose a killer. She does not conclusively decide that it was Allison Shein, a candidate for tenure, that Bullfinch bullied. Or if it was Allison and her lover, or if it was Harry, Allison's other lover, or both of them, or all of them together. We are not told how Allison, described as a meek woman, bludgeons a man to death, except for a quick aside about her pilates-style martial arts class. Despite being given nothing about the actual murder, we are given so much about...Bullfinch's irrelevant sexual deviance? Bullfinch rapes a student, information tossed aside. Bullfinch is paying an immigrant cleaner for blowjobs–something completely irrelevant to his murder. Bullfinch has a secret son, who, just like the others, never makes it past the first page he is introduced on.
The second half of the novel introduces new murders, somehow also not connected to the first, and seemingly unexamined. The brakes on Dell's car are cut. We never find out who did it. A rock is thrown through Dell's paternal father's window and (somehow) gravely injures him–this also goes unaccounted for. There is an anonymous hit-and-run with no victim. Then, Harry, Dell's main suspect for Bullfinch's murder, is murdered, for reasons unrelated to Bullfinch's murder, but
the conclusion does not tell us who killed Harry and how. Was it Michelle, the lesbian cop whose girlfriend slept with Harry? Or Michelle's girlfriend, being blackmailed by Harry for the hit-and-run, which she may have committed? The central mystery of this novel seems to be what actually happened in it.
All that being said, there were things I enjoyed. The pace was gripping toward the end. The main character was witty; her voice shines through the pages. I truly believe Amy Bloom could've had a good novel if she hadn't gotten tired of writing and editing it. Just a bit more time, reflection, and revision could have done Bloom and Dell a great service.
July 24, 2026
3.5 stars for me.
***I love Amy Bloom's books. I love a woman PI, unorthodox investigative methods, and a darkly playful tone, but I ultimately wanted a longer book that let me dig further into Bloom's academia-adjacent world and its secrets. Bloom's first foray into mystery writing left me wanting more character development and more resolutions. ***
Amy Bloom is the author of one of my favorite historical fiction novels (see below), but she is no stranger to writing in varied genres.
In Blunt Instrument, she dives into mysteries, offering a private investigator whose father's past association with Cromwell University leads to her hiring. A prickly professor has turned up dead (his head crushed by a bronze bust of Nathaniel Hawthorne), and self-taught PI Dell Chandler uses her unorthodox approaches to try to determine which of the tenure-desperate, self-satisfied, resentful, overconfident, entitled, or simpering suspects--many of whom are academics who are dissatisfied with their lots--is responsible.
I'm a big fan of a woman PI using unorthodox methods to solve a case, and Bloom offers that setup here. I love an academic setting, and I also enjoy a conflict between renegade justice-seekers and law enforcement. Dell faces earth-shattering personal revelations in the book, and I loved that.
But I wish that this book were longer and that the pacing were easier to latch onto. The romance element seemed to happen too quickly; it felt rushed and therefore not particularly believable to me. One crime leads to another crime, and the first crime is largely abandoned--along with the university's president and Dell's boss, who disappears after a seemingly significant introduction, until she reappears at the very end of the book wondering why she never received any updates on the case.
Dell's piecing together of the factors that lead to various crimes felt largely abrupt and too easy. Some of her determinations were figured out out of the reader's view, so that we missed Dell's train of thought and realizations, and so that the limited Big Reveals felt jarring. I wished for more exporation of Dell's own background as an academic and I would have appreciated more character development all around. Bloom set up promising scenarios for rich depth, introduced dichotomies (for example, Dell generally loves men and leaves them but she is also a hopeless romantic), then backed off somewhat.
Perhaps my biggest issue with the novel is that multiple loops didn't feel closed. I wondered if I somehow missed the resolution of various mysteries (who cut the brakes, who threw the rock through the window, who are the definitive killers), but I reread and found that Bloom seems to leave these somewhat or completely dangling.
Yet I love Amy Bloom's writing, her voice, and her characters. I'm up for reading all of her books. I'm hoping that subsequent Dell Chandler mysteries will offer more elements I found myself hoping for here.
I received an audiobook version of this title courtesy of Libro.fm and Highbridge Company, and I received a prepublication electronic version of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Penzler Publishers: The Mysterious Press.
Bloom is also the author of White Houses, which I gave 5 Bossy stars, the heartbreakingly beautiful In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss, I'll Be Right Here, Away, Lucky Us, Come to Me: Stories, and A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You: Stories. (You can find full reviews of the first three titles listed here on Bossy Bookworm, the blog.)
To read my full review on Bossy Bookworm, or to find out about Bossy reviews and Greedy Reading Lists as soon as they're posted, please see Blunt Instrument.
Find hundreds of reviews and lots of roundups of my favorite books on the blog: Bossy Bookworm
Follow me on Instagram! @bossybookwormblog
Or Facebook! Bossy Bookworm
***I love Amy Bloom's books. I love a woman PI, unorthodox investigative methods, and a darkly playful tone, but I ultimately wanted a longer book that let me dig further into Bloom's academia-adjacent world and its secrets. Bloom's first foray into mystery writing left me wanting more character development and more resolutions. ***
Amy Bloom is the author of one of my favorite historical fiction novels (see below), but she is no stranger to writing in varied genres.
In Blunt Instrument, she dives into mysteries, offering a private investigator whose father's past association with Cromwell University leads to her hiring. A prickly professor has turned up dead (his head crushed by a bronze bust of Nathaniel Hawthorne), and self-taught PI Dell Chandler uses her unorthodox approaches to try to determine which of the tenure-desperate, self-satisfied, resentful, overconfident, entitled, or simpering suspects--many of whom are academics who are dissatisfied with their lots--is responsible.
I'm a big fan of a woman PI using unorthodox methods to solve a case, and Bloom offers that setup here. I love an academic setting, and I also enjoy a conflict between renegade justice-seekers and law enforcement. Dell faces earth-shattering personal revelations in the book, and I loved that.
But I wish that this book were longer and that the pacing were easier to latch onto. The romance element seemed to happen too quickly; it felt rushed and therefore not particularly believable to me. One crime leads to another crime, and the first crime is largely abandoned--along with the university's president and Dell's boss, who disappears after a seemingly significant introduction, until she reappears at the very end of the book wondering why she never received any updates on the case.
Dell's piecing together of the factors that lead to various crimes felt largely abrupt and too easy. Some of her determinations were figured out out of the reader's view, so that we missed Dell's train of thought and realizations, and so that the limited Big Reveals felt jarring. I wished for more exporation of Dell's own background as an academic and I would have appreciated more character development all around. Bloom set up promising scenarios for rich depth, introduced dichotomies (for example, Dell generally loves men and leaves them but she is also a hopeless romantic), then backed off somewhat.
Perhaps my biggest issue with the novel is that multiple loops didn't feel closed. I wondered if I somehow missed the resolution of various mysteries (who cut the brakes, who threw the rock through the window, who are the definitive killers), but I reread and found that Bloom seems to leave these somewhat or completely dangling.
Yet I love Amy Bloom's writing, her voice, and her characters. I'm up for reading all of her books. I'm hoping that subsequent Dell Chandler mysteries will offer more elements I found myself hoping for here.
I received an audiobook version of this title courtesy of Libro.fm and Highbridge Company, and I received a prepublication electronic version of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Penzler Publishers: The Mysterious Press.
Bloom is also the author of White Houses, which I gave 5 Bossy stars, the heartbreakingly beautiful In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss, I'll Be Right Here, Away, Lucky Us, Come to Me: Stories, and A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You: Stories. (You can find full reviews of the first three titles listed here on Bossy Bookworm, the blog.)
To read my full review on Bossy Bookworm, or to find out about Bossy reviews and Greedy Reading Lists as soon as they're posted, please see Blunt Instrument.
Find hundreds of reviews and lots of roundups of my favorite books on the blog: Bossy Bookworm
Follow me on Instagram! @bossybookwormblog
Or Facebook! Bossy Bookworm
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