Retrieval: An Academic Murder Mystery

by Linda Blackwell Billingsley

Retrieval, a fast-paced academic murder mystery, opens when the library’s book storage system delivers up not a book but a body. The police identify the victim as the president’s long-time assistant, LouAnn Bond, a powerful woman who is universally disliked. The detectives’ ignorance of university operations soon stymies their investigation. At this point, Maureen Shaughnessy, the university provost, asks Celeste Brinkman, an English professor, to join her staff and look into the murder. Celeste welcomes the boost to her paycheck, but then a second body turns up in the library, and she discovers that the university’s reputation is not Shaughnessy’s only concern. Caught in the trap of her affection for Shaughnessy and other suspects, the evidence she has uncovered, and her loyalty to family, Celeste pursues the investigation as her research leads her into a deadly trap.

Genres: Mystery

205 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 30, 2019

About the author

I was born in downtown Los Angeles but moved to Reseda (in the San Fernando Valley) when I was two. I attended local schools and then, after a semester at Pierce Junior College, I went to UCLA where I graduated in 1970, the year of Kent State and a general strike at UCLA. Having been accepted into the Peace Corps, I went to St. Anne-de-la Pocatière, Quebec, Canada, for language and pedagogy training. After six or eight weeks and a brief break, I went overseas to Senegal, West Africa, a former French colony for an additional six weeks of pedagogy and language (Wolof) training in Dakar. I lived at my post in Fatick, Senegal, and taught English as a foreign language in the CEG (middle-high school equivalent) for three years after which I returned to the US and went to graduate school in English at Yale. In 1978, after a year of teaching in Oklahoma, my husband and I moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where we still live. Three of our four children have made their homes here. Over the years, as we raised our family, I had a variety of jobs that often over-lapped each other. I worked as a part-time English teacher at University of Louisville, as a free-lance editor and writer, in a variety of capacities at the local library, as the second person in a pharmacy design business, and, finally, as an administrative assistant in Women's and Gender Studies at the university. From childhood, I have been imagining and writing stories. I am a life-time reader of anything that interests me--film history, science, and fiction (especially women's literature). I

Reviews

[Debbe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading a mystery where the murder happens in a library pulled me in immediately. The University setting is a bonus. Lots of suspects to ponder throughout. The English professor, amateur sleuth, is delightful and should make a fun protagonist to follow in future volumes.

[YoKevinO · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a library worker, this mystery was perfectly suited to lure me in. I couldn't put it down and read the whole thing in 3 days! Well... maybe that's normal to you, but not typical of my reading habits. The protagonist is likable, and you want to learn what stone she'll turn up next to get her closer towards solving the case. Every character is familiar and has a motive, so you can never quite pin down a suspect. You'll be speeding through to figure things out, while at the same time not wanting it to end. I can't wait for the next book from this talented author!