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Nick Hoffman #4
Little Miss Evil
It appears that Nick Hoffman's career is finally moving in the right direction, and the celebrity that comes with solving murders has brought him more students than he can possibly handle. But things are never calm at the State University of Michigan: Nick's partner's career seems to be spiraling down and out of control; a new faculty member is causing a lot of nasty talk; and cryptic messages are showing up in Nick's mailbox.
187 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
1 person is currently reading
29 people want to read
About the author
Lev Raphael
46 books54 followersI've wanted to be an author since I was in second grade and fell in love with "The Three Musketeers", which I read to pieces. It hasn't been a swashbuckling life exactly, but one full of surprises, including recently selling my literary papers to Michigan State University's Libraries.
Since second grade, I've loved all sorts of books and have ended up writing nineteen books in many genres: memoir, mystery, short story collections, a children's book, and more. I've been an academic, a radio DJ, had my own talk show, and currently have three terrific giugs.
I write a monthly column for Bibliobuffet.com called Book Brunch. I blog at Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lev-rap...). And I do a monthly "Under the Radar" book review for WKAR 90.5 FM in East Lansing, MI. I'm always on the lookout for beautifully written books in any genre, but I more and more favor books from smaller presses, because they need more exposure.
I love reading my work and have done hundreds of readings on three different continents. Readings are performances, and I practice, practice, practice.
Since second grade, I've loved all sorts of books and have ended up writing nineteen books in many genres: memoir, mystery, short story collections, a children's book, and more. I've been an academic, a radio DJ, had my own talk show, and currently have three terrific giugs.
I write a monthly column for Bibliobuffet.com called Book Brunch. I blog at Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lev-rap...). And I do a monthly "Under the Radar" book review for WKAR 90.5 FM in East Lansing, MI. I'm always on the lookout for beautifully written books in any genre, but I more and more favor books from smaller presses, because they need more exposure.
I love reading my work and have done hundreds of readings on three different continents. Readings are performances, and I practice, practice, practice.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 9, 2022
This will definitely be my last in this series. Nothing happens. Well, almost nothing. There is a murder in the last quarter of the book but that is quickly and painlessly solved. There are some threatening actions but they also amount to nothing. Nick's partner remains a blank presence (and terrible boyfriend) and nick still has not gotten tenure. At this point I'm not ever sure why the author is writing this book, he seems so uninterested.
Also, the pop culture references are exhausting. I felt like I should have had IMDB open the whole time.
Also, the pop culture references are exhausting. I felt like I should have had IMDB open the whole time.
June 22, 2019
This is the 4th Nick Hoffman mystery and we find our intrepid college professor facing personal and collegiate problems. On the work related side , Nick is on pins and needles on if he'll get tenure..On the personal side, he's worried about Stefan's depression over his writing career, his beloved cousin, Sharon 's illness, and his infatuation with a female coworker. Also, someone is harassing Nick, and the pranks escalate. On top of that we add murder...it wouldn't be a Nick Hoffman mystery without a murder most foul . This is a good read and a fun read..Enjoy! !
May 2, 2022
This series is well-written, witty and funny. Never boring, never predictable. I gasped and laughed throughout. (I love his portrayal of academia as being "a cross between Chernobyl and Chinatown.") It's more than a mystery, though. He shares Stefan and Nick's lives with us -- their love of cooking, wine, trials and tribulations with their careers, what they're reading, the music they listen to. It's a whole world that I really like to visit.
August 14, 2025
After all that, not really sure who is Little Miss Evil, the victim or the perpetrator. Another self-destructive descent into academic politics. Ok, thank you. Bye now.
September 10, 2007
Raphael, Lev – Little Miss Evil – Okay
The fourth in Raphael's Nick Hoffman series is set once again at the mythical State University of Michigan, where hordes of academics equivalent to migrant workers labor as teaching assistants, adjuncts, and gypsy scholars officed in mildewed basements. Add a few tenured professors, all eager to claw up the ladder, preferably by stepping on someone else's head, and you have only to throw in fat, ugly, stupid, and badly dressed administrators to round out the cast of Raphael's usual suspects. These vipers in the grove academe are seething with envy as Camille Cypriani, best-selling trash novelist, is awarded a well-endowed chair. Her arrival coincides with threats to Nick in the form of cryptic messages, a burnt-out mailbox, and a vandalized office. A corpse seems destined to appear, but the long-awaited murder occurs more than three-quarters of the way into the book, with Nick's deduction close on its heels--dubious pacing that flies in the face of murder mystery traditions.
The killing of a college professor. It was okay but just took a long time for anything to happen.
The fourth in Raphael's Nick Hoffman series is set once again at the mythical State University of Michigan, where hordes of academics equivalent to migrant workers labor as teaching assistants, adjuncts, and gypsy scholars officed in mildewed basements. Add a few tenured professors, all eager to claw up the ladder, preferably by stepping on someone else's head, and you have only to throw in fat, ugly, stupid, and badly dressed administrators to round out the cast of Raphael's usual suspects. These vipers in the grove academe are seething with envy as Camille Cypriani, best-selling trash novelist, is awarded a well-endowed chair. Her arrival coincides with threats to Nick in the form of cryptic messages, a burnt-out mailbox, and a vandalized office. A corpse seems destined to appear, but the long-awaited murder occurs more than three-quarters of the way into the book, with Nick's deduction close on its heels--dubious pacing that flies in the face of murder mystery traditions.
The killing of a college professor. It was okay but just took a long time for anything to happen.
January 14, 2016
This book has all the humor, melodrama and campus bitterness that the first three in the series offered. Lev Raphael is a wonderful writer – literate and elegant – and creates a vivid, perhaps even claustrophobic sense of his fictional university and its bizarre denizens.
But what has chiefly enamored me through this series is the real point of the stories—the complex, committed, loving relationship between Nick Hoffman and his partner of fifteen years, Stefan.
So for some reason in this book Nick, at forty-something, for the very first time in his life, finds himself obsessively attractive to a woman. Thereby threatening the one part of this series that I counted on: a happy gay couple coping with life’s strangeness. There are few enough gay couples in popular literature these days without having one of them decide he might be sort of straight.
I don’t know why Raphael did it, but it killed the series for me. Too bad.
But what has chiefly enamored me through this series is the real point of the stories—the complex, committed, loving relationship between Nick Hoffman and his partner of fifteen years, Stefan.
So for some reason in this book Nick, at forty-something, for the very first time in his life, finds himself obsessively attractive to a woman. Thereby threatening the one part of this series that I counted on: a happy gay couple coping with life’s strangeness. There are few enough gay couples in popular literature these days without having one of them decide he might be sort of straight.
I don’t know why Raphael did it, but it killed the series for me. Too bad.
January 13, 2009
I think that this was the weakest book in the "Nick Hoffman Mysteries" series so far even though this time, the threat was more personal for Nick. I don't know why it didn't really grab me. Maybe because I read this book soon after the 3rd one and Raphael's tendency to recount some of Nick's previous adventures kinda bored me since I had them all in fresh memory? Or maybe because the build-up to the murder itself took so long? Or maybe because Stefan behaved like a real jerk most of the time? Who knows. But the dialog was still witty and the ending happy - especially for Stefan's career. I will definitely read the next one in the series.
July 5, 2008
This book probably doesn't deserve three stars but I am a sucker for novels with an academic setting AND it takes place at a state University in my home--Michigan.
The book is rather self-consciously gay--but uses the protagonists relationship to paint a very warm domestic setting that adds to any appeal the book has. What I liked about the (very unimportant mystery) plot was the snarky, back-biting portraits of the University administration and faculty. I only hope the characters weren't drawn from the author's personal experience.
The book is rather self-consciously gay--but uses the protagonists relationship to paint a very warm domestic setting that adds to any appeal the book has. What I liked about the (very unimportant mystery) plot was the snarky, back-biting portraits of the University administration and faculty. I only hope the characters weren't drawn from the author's personal experience.
December 15, 2013
OMG, this is such fun. Raphael writes academic mysteries unlike anyone else: barbed, witty, original. The narrator is a stitch.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews