Death by Dissertation (Cassandra Sato)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – Nebraska
Emerald Prairie Press (April 17, 2019)
Paperback: 355 pages

Synopsis

Ambitious Cassandra Sato traded her life in Hawai’i for a dream position as Student Affairs VP at Morton College in tiny Carson, Nebraska. She expected the Midwestern church casseroles, land-locked cornfields, and face-freezing winters would be her biggest challenges, but it’s her job that’s rapidly becoming a nightmare.

A deaf student is dead and the investigation reveals a complicated trail of connections between campus food service, a local farmer’s beef, and the science lab’s cancer research. Together with her few allies, Cassandra must protect the students caught up in the entanglement.

Dealing with homesickness, vandalism, and a stalker, Cassandra is trapped in a public relations disaster that could cost her job, or more. No one said college was easy.

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Review

This was a good start to a new series about a woman from Hawaii that takes a job in Nebraska….now you have to be thinking like I was…are you kidding?  WHY?!  But later in the book, we learn why and the support she had to make the move to advance her career.  Of course, things aren’t going quite as she would have expected when a student is found dead on campus.  This book tells the journey of trying to solve the murder, keep her job, and stay alive.  Yes, you read that right, stay alive.  She has a stalker that means business.

This book is very detailed and I thought the author did a good job on character development and providing just enough information to keep the reader engaged but not so much detail that a reader might lose interest.  The mystery surprised me a little bit at the end but not too much.  There was something about this character that just stood out to me but I didn’t know this character was also the killer.  Just seemed like there was something off.

I felt for Cassandra and the prejudice she ran into in the smaller town of Carson, Nebraska.  Yes, she was different than the rest of the town but you would have hoped they would have embraced her and welcomed her diversity.  Perhaps in future books.

The book did seem to move at a slower pace until the end where it really picked up steam until the killer was revealed.  There are some comedic moments especially when she visits the farm to check on the cows wearing a suit and heels.  Someone should have told her to change clothes or at least shoes.

There are some potential love interests for Cassandra should she choose to let loose and live a little and not focus so much on her career.  Sure the career is important but so is living life.

The only strange thing I noted when reading this book was when Cassandra would slip into this Creole dialect.  I didn’t know that there was such a dialect as Hawaiian Creole but apparently so.  Some of the phrases were odd, especially when she mentioned getting “chicken skin”.  I can only assume she was referring to what most of us might call “goosebumps” but she did use goosebumps in the book so not really sure what she meant.  There is also 1 f* bomb in the book which surprised me as that is not a word commonly used in a cozy.

Overall we enjoyed the book and we give it 3 1/2 paws.

About the Author

Kelly Brakenhoff is an American Sign Language Interpreter whose motivation for learning ASL began in high school when she wanted to converse with her deaf friends. As an American Sign Language Interpreter with more than twenty years of experience, Kelly’s worked in college classrooms for fifteen different majors. From traipsing across muddy farm fields to stomach-churning medical procedures, and stage interpreting for famous figures, Kelly’s community interpreting interactions number in the thousands. Unfortunately, once she’s stepped away from the job, she usually forgets 90% of what happened. Which helps her keep confidential information safe, but also makes it really hard to grocery shop for more than 5 items without a written list.

Kelly wants to live in a world filled with peace, love, and joy, where people who can hear learn enough sign language to include deaf people in everyday conversations and work. Where every deaf child has early access to language and books with characters like them, and dark chocolate is cheap and plentiful.

When she’s not interpreting or writing, you can find Kelly cheering for her favorite Husker teams or training for half-marathons because she really likes dessert.

Her first mystery, Death by Dissertation, released April 22, 2019.

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