G.M. Malliet - Death at the Alma Mater (A St. Just Mystery, Book 03)

Death at the Alma Mater 2010 by G. M. Malliet.

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First e-book edition 2010

E-book ISBN: 9780738722900

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Cover art: Certificate Istockphoto.com/MB Photo; Scroll Istockphoto.com/Felix Mckel; Gargoyle Istockphoto.com/Jan Rihak

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the following people for their graciousness in allowing me to make calls on their time and their invaluable expertise:

Leslie Dunn

Andrew Peden

Stephen Redburn

Dale Steventon

My special thanks go to expert Thomas Edwards for his thoughtful review and commentary on the parts of this story pertaining to rowing and sculling. As always, any mistakes are entirely my own.

Authors Note

While the University of Cambridge, England, of course exists, St. Michaels College does not. I have randomly placed St. Mikes on a make-believe plot of land backing onto the River Cam, and preempted the architectural features of several famous colleges to serve the needs of St. Mikes and of my narrative.

All members and staff of this imaginary college are likewise figments of my imagination.

Character List

Dr. D.X.L. Marburger Master of St. Michaels College, University of Cambridge, England. His best-laid plans to replenish the colleges dwindling coffers are rapidly undone by murder.

Mr. Bowles College Bursar. A canny man with an uncanny eye for the bottom line.

The Reverend Dr. Otis College Dean. A wooly-headed lamb among the wolves?

James Bassett Knighted for his services to literature, Sir James is less than gallant when his former wife joins the weekends festivities.

India Bassett ne Burrows Lady Bassett has never been the jealous type, but this weekend may test her limits.

Alexandra (Lexy) Laurant She may still carry a torch for her ex-husband, but everyone wonders: What exactly does she plan to do with it?

Gwennap Pengelly A celebrity crime reporter, shell do anything to get the scoop.

Hermione Jax An academic who revels in her reputation as a bluestocking of high moral standards and long memory.

Constance Dunning An American who complains about everything. Murder ruining her holiday is simply the last straw.

Karl Dunning Constances financier husband, necessarily a man of infinite patienceor is he?

Augie Cramb An American dot-com millionaire and St. Michaels alumnus, he has old, and often fond, memories of his college days.

Sebastian Burrows A golden lad with little use for the weekends visitors, especially since they include his parents.

Saffron Sellers Sebastians girlfriend. A hardworking undergraduate, has she learned too much for her own good?

Portia DeAth St. Justs inamorata. Once again, her fine romance takes a back seat to murder.

Geraldo Valentiano A millionaire playboy with little interest in the victims he often leaves behind.

Detective Chief Inspector Arthur St. Just As usual, hes called in for a case that requires unusually delicate handling.

Sergeant Garwin Fear, Dr. Malenfant, and Constable Brummond DCI St. Justs assistants in solving the most baffling of crimes.

William Trinity The colleges Head Porter.

Mary Goose College chef.

Kurokawa Masaki A brilliant student with his head always in the clouds, but he notices more than he lets on.

Jason Wright Rowing coach.

Marigold Arkwright College bedder.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Webster was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin.

T. S. Eliot

ALMA MATER

Founded around the time King Henry VIII was selling off his monasteries, St. Michaels College of the University of Cambridge spreads in haphazard fashion by the River Cam, a model of functional medieval architecture wedded to Tudor bombast and, later, Victorian excess.

The University itself, of which the college is a part, was formed by a group of tearaway scholars escaping the wrath of the townspeople of Oxford, where clashes had ended with two students being hanged for murder, which incident should have given everyone in Cambridge pause. But by this timethe early 1200sthe inhabitants of Cambridge had survived the Romans, the Saxons, the Vikings, and the Normans, and, perhaps numbed into apathy at the sight of yet more new arrivals, rashly allowed the fledgling seat of learning to take hold.