In the Attic: A Professor Karen Pelletier Short Story

A Karen Pelletier Mystery

by Joanne Dobson

Professor Karen Pelletier visits a recluse poet and finds an ancient murder.

Genres: Novella, Mystery

10 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 18, 2016

About the author

At midlife, after two decades as an English professor and literary scholar, Joanne Dobson surprised herself (and her colleagues) by writing a mystery novel set at a small, elite, New England college where the curriculum seemed to offer a major in murder. Joanne was even more surprised when QUIETER THAN SLEEP (1997) was published by Doubleday. QUIETER was the first of the six Professor Karen Pelletier academic mystery novels, and the sheer pleasure of writing mysteries lured Joanne's feet from the straight path of tenured professorship to the slippery slope of 21st-century fiction writing.

And now comes an unexpected new surprise, THE KASHMIRI SHAWL (2014). An historical novel set in an India in violent rebellion (1857) and an America on the verge of Civil War (1860). An epic journey from the sultry climes of nineteenth-century India to the cosmopolitan chaos of New York City on the eve of Civil War, and then back again to India in quest of a kidnapped daughter and a lost, forbidden, love.

Joanne taught for many years at Fordham University, Amherst College, and Tufts University. Currently she teaches at the Hudson Valley Writers Center.

Reviews

[Allyson McGill · Rating 1 out of 5]

Is this meant to be a tease for a longer mystery? When it ended, I thought I was having technical problems. But no, when I swiped again, that's all there was. What a let-down!

I have just finished reading all of Dobson's Karen Pelletier mysteries, having read them back-to-back because I enjoyed them so much. The last one "Death Without Tenure" was written in 2010. Why hasn't Dobson continued the series? And why would she suddenly come out with a so-called short story that doesn't go anywhere?

Please, Joanne Dobson, please bring back Karen in another book!

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this isn't a book--it's a short story that is too short! Sure, it has the requisite features, but I still want more of the Dr. Karen Pelletier mysteries--entire novels, please!!