Extracurricular Activities

Extracurricular Activities (A Murder 101 Mystery) by Maggie Barbieri ~~

English professor Alison Bergeron wishes she'd stop getting uninvited visits from her ex-husband, Raymond Stark, fornicator extraordinaire and fellow professor at St. Thomas, a small Catholic university north of New York City. Ray's past conquests include Alison's slutty neighbor, Terri, and St. Thomas student Kathy Miceli, whose recent murder shocked the campus. Then Alison comes home one night to find Ray's body in her kitchen, hands and feet chopped off: the slaying signature of chubby mobster Peter Miceli, Kathy's father. Peter begins stalking Alison, showing up uninvited in her house to proclaim his innocence. Alison reluctantly turns to her soon-to-be-divorced former boyfriend, Bobby Crawford, an NYPD homicide detective, for help and comfort. The plot thickens when Terri disappears, leaving Alison in charge of Trixie, a scene-stealing golden retriever who makes a gruesome discovery.

Allison really wishes her ex-husband Ray would just leave her alone already. But she didn't mean permanently - as in dead! When Ray's body shows up in her house she has no choice but to turn to sometime boyfriend, not yet divorced "Detective Hot Pants" Bobby Crawford. As Allison tries to figure out who killed Ray, she is pestered by mob boss Peter Miceli - much to her and his wife's dismay. There are a lot more bodies, more quirkiness and less fainting on Allison's part. The killer's identity will certainly surprise you. Why the writing style is a bit more choppy, and there seems to be a lot of repeat phrases and switching from first to third person, you won't be disappointed in this installment.